"Dream Variations"

Sometimes when I’m in a bookstore and I'm looking at books, there comes a moment when I feel as though I must own the particular book in my hands.

It’s like a magic synapse happens, and I just think, “Yes. I need this book. This is going to enrich my life.”

Below is the poem that I was actually reading the moment I decided I would buy “The Zoo of the New,” a Penguin anthology of poems that, according to its editors, “surprise, delight and thrill."

Enjoy.

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"Dream Variations"
By Langston Hughes

 To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
    Dark like me—
That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance!  Whirl!  Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening . . .
A tall, slim tree . . .
Night coming tenderly
    Black like me.