Poetry Friday--Your Dawn

Demonstration in Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King day, and to celebrate the inauguration of our next president, Barack Obama, I offer up a poem by Langston Hughes:

Demonstration

Did you ever walk into a firehose
With the water turned up full blast?
Did you ever walk toward police guns
When each step might be your last?
Did you ever stand up in the face of snarling dogs
And not move as the dogs came?
Did you ever feel the tear gas burn
Your day, your night, your dawn?
Your dawn
When the water's a rainsbow hue,
Your dawn
When the guns are no longer aimed at you,
Your dawn
When the cops forget their jails,
Your dawn
When the police dogs wag their tails,
Your dawn
When the tear-gas canisters are dry,
Your dawn
When you own the star in the sky,
Your dawn
When the atom bomb is yours--
Your dawn
When you have the keys to all doors--
Your dawn
Will you ever forget your dawn?

Read more of Langston Hughes' poetry in The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes [811 HUG].