Langston speaks on Michaela DePrince: the devil's child

 
Song for a Dark Girl

Way Down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
They hung my black young lover
To a cross roads tree.

Way Down South in Dixie
(Bruised body high in air)
I asked the white Lord Jesus
What was the use of prayer.

Way Down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
Love is a naked shadow
On a gnarled and naked tree.

by Langston Hughes

Langston speaks of Michaela DePrince: the devil's child

The peal of Kids Who Die
resonates in the crescendo of
a Song for a Dark Girl.
Listen to the staccato of steel mosquitos
inking black serifs for this dirge
on another Bad Morning.  

Her people are My People.
A Genius Child born with Feet o' Jesus.
Her spots are the constellations
that simmer and then subside
come Daybreak in Alabama.
She glides on the whispers of mockingbirds
and dragonflies
who know no limits.

For I, Too
know what it is to feel shamed for the hue
of your dignity.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

And so have you.

I pulled Freedom's Plow
with a pen, Me And The Mule.
You pirouette over those plowed rows
singing Children's Rhymes learned through
Wisdom and War.

They called you
Devil's Child.

But you must know this,
Whilst God did banish Lucifer
You have risen through the flames
fed by blood and tears.  

Serving as a beacon that
illuminates an unfulfilled need in all of us,
best quenched by your flight in an
April Rain Song.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh5kiTn0P4Y


Presented in the challenge "Poet of the Month: Langston Hughes" hosted by anonymouslyhere.