Black History Month Day 6.

Sympathy
By Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
xxxWhen the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
xxxWhen the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats its wing
xxxTill its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
xxxAnd a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
xxxWhen his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
xxxBut a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!

This poem is in Public Domain.

Black History Month Day 5.

Since there are only a few black American poets in the public domain, I will have to contend with sending the readers over to the other official sites to read today’s poem.

Bullet Points
By Jericho Brown (1976-)

I will not shoot myself
In the head, and I will not shoot myself
Read the rest of the poem

Black History Month Day 4.

The Negro Speaks of Rivers
By Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
xxxxxflow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
xxxwent down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy
xxxbosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

This poem is in public domain.

Black History Month Day 3.

I Sit and Sew
By Alice Moore-Dunbar Nelson

I sit and sew—a useless task it seems,
My hands grown tired, my head weighed down with dreams—
The panoply of war, the martial tred of men,
Grim-faced, stern-eyed, gazing beyond the ken
Of lesser souls, whose eyes have not seen Death,
Nor learned to hold their lives but as a breath—
But—I must sit and sew.

I sit and sew—my heart aches with desire—
That pageant terrible, that fiercely pouring fire
On wasted fields, and writhing grotesque things
Once men. My soul in pity flings
Appealing cries, yearning only to go
There in that holocaust of hell, those fields of woe—
But—I must sit and sew.

The little useless seam, the idle patch;
Why dream I here beneath my homely thatch,
When there they lie in sodden mud and rain,
Pitifully calling me, the quick ones and the slain?
You need me, Christ! It is no roseate dream
That beckons me—this pretty futile seam,
It stifles me—God, must I sit and sew?

This poem is in Public Domain.