Being a Dreamer

Dreams are the stuff of life: inspiration, direction, innovation.

Dreams

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

--Langston Hughes

(This poem has a home on Linda S. Socha's blog, Psyche Connections: Self Reinvention Year 13. Do pop into this wonderful inspiring blog. Linda recently posted a a beautiful poem, "Black and White.")

Being Langston Hughes

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world
and older than the flow 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
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom
turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Being Thankful

As I listened to Jennifer Hudson sing The National Anthem at the start of the last day of the Democratic National Convention, to my surprise tears began to flow like a steady stream. (The night hadn't even begun.) From my heart came the names and faces of those who have gone on before us whose love and determination have helped to bring us all to this historical moment:

Crispus Attucks
James Amistead
Frederick Douglas
Harriet Tubman
Sojourner Truth
George Washington Carver
Booker T. Washington
Phyllis Wheatley
Dr. Charles Drew
W.E.B. Du Bois
Matthew Henson
The Tuskegee Airmen
Dr. Martin Luther King
Rosa Parks
Fannie Lou Hammer
Langston Hughes
Zora Neale Hurston
James Baldwin
Gwendolyn Brooks

As these courageous people filled my heart, I was also reminded of the many others of all races and faiths who made it possible for America to arrive at this very moment, one that we have reached together.

It is my heartfelt desire to see Barack Obama become the next president of the United States. But even if this does not happen, we have already reached a milestone and we know that we can continue onward on any path of change...together.

May God bless the great people of the United States.