Hold fast to dreams 
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

^{After Langston Hughes & Sterling Brown}

I’ve known rivers long enough to know:

not enough black boys
take their marks at the start line,
      perch on a high wire
      overlooking the world,
      their wings spread wide,
      ready to soar toward the sun,

not enough take the stage,
      except to sing, dance, rap rhymes,
      or mime to songs wearing white-painted faces.

Maybe they’d rather watch and listen
      than read Douglass, Baldwin, and King,
or cruise, chill, shoot hoops, and wander a mall
      than stand unpainted,
      reciting Langston, Terrance,
      Danez, and Jericho.

It shouldn’t matter that white boys,
      whom the world expects to win,
            can wear the black mask,
            Poitier-Denzel-Idris-style,
      like auditioning for a Broadway show___
      morning-bird voice, thick-lipped,
      bulging tight pants and all,
      with a little James Brown swagger
      stepping toward the stage.

Maybe too many black boys in America today
know too much
of shallow streams and dry, desert sands,

don’t hear the bell
      their silence rings
      of untold pain
      that keeps a boy inside a man,

and don’t hear words
of strong black men
who’ve known ancient, dusky rivers,

      men who curse love
      for not loving back,

      who stumble,
      fall, or get knocked down,

      but get up,
      speak truth out loud,

and make a way out of no way
with nothing but a tom-tom
crying, laughing, and singing in their hearts.

If you sit a few feet away

from this hand fan that once advertised

Amos Moses Barber Shop in New Orleans,

or if you hold it under a dimly glowing light

in a darkened, half-empty room,

            all you see are eighteen black boys,

their moon-shaped heads

tilting in slightly different directions,

hair trimmed low or nearly bald,

and foreheads bulging

like summer-blooming bulbs.

Their faces tell nothing

            of what they feel and see,

                          what men they will become,

            and what they don’t know

            of days they have yet to live,

when eyes that look at them will shut,

and they will be unseen, untaught,

passed by, forgotten, called other names,

or arrested, handcuffed, and jailed

for crimes they didn’t commit,

or maybe they will vanish

in the night inside an alley, a forest

or a river, or be left to dangle

            and drip from the branch of a tree,

and like clouds of smoke,

their brown skin and charred dreams

            will eclipse the rays beaming

            toward the feet of their children.

Inside brightly-lit, crowded rooms

built of race-etched stone walls

that gird and divide their country,

these boys are the faces of all black men.

Don’t knock at my door, little child,
     I cannot let you in,
You know not what a world this is
     Of cruelty and sin.
Wait in the still eternity
     Until I come to you,
The world is cruel, cruel, child,
     I cannot let you in!

Don’t knock at my heart, little one,
     I cannot bear the pain
Of turning deaf-ear to your call
     Time and time again!
You do not know the monster men
     Inhabiting the earth,
Be still, be still, my precious child,
     I must not give you birth!