Summary
In today’s poem by one of my personal poetic heroes, Langston Hughes, we see the speaker wishing for a land where joy is possible. While the poem has an undercurrent of fear and what is outlawed, there’s also the idea that underneath this bleak landscape there might be another place where delight is allowed or even encouraged. Perhaps we can make it so.
We should have a land of sun, Of gorgeous sun, And a land of fragrant water Where the twilight is a soft bandanna handkerchief Of rose and gold, And not this land Where life is cold.
We should have a land of trees, Of tall thick trees, Bowed down with chattering parrots Brilliant as the day, And not this land where birds are gray.
Ah, we should have a land of joy, Of love and joy and wine and song, And not this land where joy is wrong.
https://www.slowdownshow.org/episode/2021/11/30/556-our-land