We Must Learn To Be

From Barren Brown Stems To Glistening Leaf-buds; From The Leaf-buds To Snowy Virginity Of Bloom…it Was Like A Flute Song Forgotten In Another Existence And Remembered Again. What? How? Why? This Singing She Heard That Had Nothing To Do With Her Ears. The Rose Of The World Was Breathing Out Smell. It Followed Her Through All Her Waking Moments And Caressed Her In Her Sleep.

Among The Thousand White Persons, I Am A Dark Rock Surged Upon, And Overswept.

Justice, Like Beauty, Is In The Eye Of The Beholder.

There Is Something About Poverty That Smells Like Death. Dead Dreams Dropping Off The Heart Like Leaves In A Dry Season And Rotting Around The Feet; Impulses Smothered Too Long In The Fetid Air Of Underground Caves. The Soul Lives In Sickly Air. People Can Be Slaveships In Shoes.

I Am Not Tragically Colored. There Is No Great Sorrow Dammed Up In My Soul, Nor Lurking Behind My Eyes. I Do Not Mind At All. I Do Not Belong To The Sobbing School Of Negrohood Who Hold That Nature Somehow Has Given Them A Lowdown Dirty Deal And Whose Feelings Are All Hurt About It. Even In The Helter-skelter Skirmish That Is My Life, I Have Seen That The World Is To The Strong Regardless Of A Little Pigmentation More Or Less. No, I Do Not Weep At The World—i Am Too Busy Sharpening My Oyster Knife.