Dear Langston

Langston Hughes

I, Too, Sing America

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

—Langston Hughes
From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes.

I feel quite audacious, to answer one of America's greatest poets with a poem of my own. But for words to become poetry, they must be audacious. I'm sure others have answered, but I must answer too.

Dear Langston

Dear Langston,
Please, please come,
come sit at the table.
We see, now, how beautiful,
how beautiful you are,
how wretched are we.
We are ashamed.
You are, you are our very own.
Please, come sit.
Without you we cannot sing,
we cannot be
America.

—Mary Ray Worley