These five things are forever,
I have learned over the years:
the first cries of a baby
after a mother's labour-
cries of pain, her joyful tears;
cries of pain and joy combined
when first she lost her maiden-
head and found her womanhood;
cries of an aborted
foetus, a weeping womb
for a baby never born
whose breath a mother's breast
will never know nor ever
miss nor death will ever mourn;
a mother's cries, a child's tears
for a love forever gone.
©2013
by G. Newton V. Chance
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
all golden in the sunset.
I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
by Langston Hughes
the poet writes the poem;
the reader gives it life
(© G. Newton V. Chance)
Make somebody happy (© Alexander Ligertwood & Carlos Santana)
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