Poem of the Month: February 2003

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 golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

- Langston Hughes


Journal prompts:

• Reflect on your ancestry. Where do your people come from? What do you know about the land they lived on? What have they taught you?
  
  
• Use this form to write a poem in the style of Langston Hughes, inserting memories or imagined people or places to create a poem which describes natural wonders that are part of your past:
  
  I've known __________________
  My soul has _________________
  I bathed in _________________
  I built _____________________
  I looked upon _______________
  I heard _____________________
  I've known __________________
  My soul has grown ___________