Poetry Sunday: As I Grew Older by Langston Hughes

As children, we all have dreams of how our lives will play out. Most of us probably imagine ourselves as heroes, accomplishing great deeds for which we will gain fame and fortune. Few of us actually see those dreams come true, at least in quite the way we had imagined. The most fortunate of us may see some form of the dreams come true for us. For others, the dreams are edited and changed through the years as imagination bumps up against reality.

This scenario may be true of all people but especially for those whose goals in life are hampered by society's expectations of them, and most especially when those expectations are overlaid by such things as racial prejudice. The acclaimed African-American poet Langston Hughes was well aware of how dreams can be stunted by a wall of prejudice that grows around one and inhibits the ability to act and achieve. As an older man, he wrote about it.   

As I Grew Older

by Langston Hughes

It was a long time ago.
I have almost forgotten my dream.
But it was there then,
In front of me,
Bright like a sun—
My dream.
And then the wall rose,
Rose slowly,
Slowly,
Between me and my dream.
Rose until it touched the sky—
The wall.
Shadow.
I am black.
I lie down in the shadow.
No longer the light of my dream before me,
Above me.
Only the thick wall.
Only the shadow.
My hands!
My dark hands!
Break through the wall!
Find my dream!
Help me to shatter this darkness,
To smash this night,
To break this shadow
Into a thousand lights of sun,
Into a thousand whirling dreams
Of sun!