I love Langston Hughes. Lately, as life has thrown me a FOUL ball, the words of his Mother to Son poem keep invading my thoughts. Well, son (daughter), I'll tell you: Life for me ain't been no crystal stair. It's had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor -- Bare. But all the time I'se been a-climbin' on, And reachin' landin's, And turnin' corners, And sometimes goin' in the dark Where there ain't been no light. So boy, don't you turn back. Don't you set down on the steps 'Cause you finds it's kinder hard. Don't you fall now -- For I'se still goin', honey, I'se still climbin', And life for me ain't been no crystal stair. Yep, sometimes life ain't no crystal stair. Hell, sometimes there aren't any stairs at all to climb out of your despair. There are just barren places filled with nothing --- no carbon, no dioxide, no oxygen --just times that you don't know how you will even take your next breath because life's blow hit you so hard all the air seems to have escaped you. I'm in one of the those stairless places. Not knowing how I will climb out and sometimes not wanting to. Ready to freeze this frame and not think about "it" or anything. If only I could erase the questions spiraling out of control during my waking and dreaming hours, then I could breathe and continue on. What is beyond the void? Mother to Daughter Then I think of Langston's last lines, and I think of what she wants of me and I grasp for the little air I have left. And I trudge forward into the dark where there ain't no light. 'Cause while she's still climbin', so must I. And when she can't climb anymore, I know, I must carry her on.
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AuthorDocumenting my evolution by filling in space and matter one word at a time. Archives
March 2023
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