(Italics are samples of Langston Hughes’ Theme for English B’)
“Go home
Write a page
And let that
page come out of you –
Then, it will be true”
I wonder if it’s that simple, Hughes,
You who rocked the flat
table with the cold metal keys clacking
upon your typing paper for who?
I am twenty-seven, Chinese and Female, born in Toronto, Canada
I went to school at Riverdale, then York, then to an office.
There’s a free admission to this college on the hill of my brain
I am the only student in my class
The steps from the hill lead down into
my physical body
Through a congested forest of tangled
hair and proof of time
I cross a bridge of hope, leading to
ambition and desire
Where somethin’s always poking me for
somethin’.
I go up the elevator to my lonely room
and sit down and write this page.
It’s not easy to know what is true for
you or me
But, I guess I, too, am what I feel and
see and hear.
hear you, hear me – do we talk on this
page?
I like to dance, listen to music and be
in love
I like a journal for a Christmas present
Being Chinese and Female doesn’t make me
not like
The same things that you like
So will my page be Chinese and Female?
Being me, it will not be white or Hughes
But it will be
A part of you, instructor.
You are America who sings of rivers
Whatever flows from me must either come
from the sky or Lake Ontario
Buddha spoke of rivers within which
needs further discussion with you
But that is the world, today, in need of
better footnotes.
Sometimes, you don’t want to be a part
of me.
Think I’m silly, don’t you?
And we are, that’s true.
As I learn from you, I guess you learn
from me
Although you’re older – and a tall slim
tree –
And somewhat more free.
This is my page for Langston Hughes
©
lyw
