Haibun: Langston Hughes' Raisin In the Sun
Poet Langston Hughs once asked in his poem, Harlem What Happens to a Dream Deferred?, “… Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” And when Langston Hughes posed this, he posed it far from this desert sun. I say this because a raisin in the Sonoran sun holds a different meaning than a raisin in a New York sun.
You see, the desert sun is relentless, sometimes burning like eyelids have been removed, because on certain days, the sun shines with glass shards, cement, and steal in each ray. The harshness of the sun can be punishing as the prejudices of racism, disability-phobia, or maybe poverty since the desert sun can burn out all life. If only the Sonoran sun could be as “lovely” as what shines on Midtown Manhattan.
exploding from earth
desert fountains birthed, sun grown.
winter’s fist, tight grip
I know there are vastly different experiences of the sun and a diversity of things that come out of it. In no way am I trying to say I get the racism Langston faced (empathy is just the turning into a direction of the journey, never does it take me where the another person’s been), but like Langston, I know things can explode in the sun. Yet from my walks into the Sonoran Desert I see that when things explode, they don’t always explode ugly. In fact, sometimes when things explode, in spite of life sucking circumstances, they can explode upward and have steely spines, standing tall with dignity, because sometimes, they blow up like Langston Hughes.
So I may not know what Langston’s observed raisin was like in a life draining sun, I am white in America and he was black; but I will learn from him and hope to know myself in this ancient desert like Langston knew rivers:
“I’ve know rivers ancient as the world
and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers...”
You see, the desert sun is relentless, sometimes burning like eyelids have been removed, because on certain days, the sun shines with glass shards, cement, and steal in each ray. The harshness of the sun can be punishing as the prejudices of racism, disability-phobia, or maybe poverty since the desert sun can burn out all life. If only the Sonoran sun could be as “lovely” as what shines on Midtown Manhattan.
exploding from earth
desert fountains birthed, sun grown.
winter’s fist, tight grip
I know there are vastly different experiences of the sun and a diversity of things that come out of it. In no way am I trying to say I get the racism Langston faced (empathy is just the turning into a direction of the journey, never does it take me where the another person’s been), but like Langston, I know things can explode in the sun. Yet from my walks into the Sonoran Desert I see that when things explode, they don’t always explode ugly. In fact, sometimes when things explode, in spite of life sucking circumstances, they can explode upward and have steely spines, standing tall with dignity, because sometimes, they blow up like Langston Hughes.
So I may not know what Langston’s observed raisin was like in a life draining sun, I am white in America and he was black; but I will learn from him and hope to know myself in this ancient desert like Langston knew rivers:
“I’ve know rivers ancient as the world
and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers...”
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| & Haiku: Desert Fountain |
