A Black Man Talks of Reaping

1902 –

1973

I have sown beside all waters in my day.
I planted deep within my heart the fear
That wind or fowl would take the grain away.
I planted safe against this stark, lean year.

I scattered seed enough to plant the land
In rows from Canada to Mexico.
But for my reaping only what the hand
Can hold at once is all that I can show.

Yet what I sowed and what the orchard yields
My brother’s sons are gathering stalk and root,
Small wonder then my children glean in fields
They have not sown, and feed on bitter fruit.

From The Book of American Negro Poetry (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922), edited by James Weldon Johnson. This poem is in the public domain.

The Return

I

Once more, listening to the wind and rain,
Once more, you and I, and above the hurting sound
Of these comes back the throbbing of remembered rain,
Treasured rain falling on dark ground.
Once more, huddling birds upon the leaves
And summer trembling on a withered vine.

Arna Bontemps

1927

To a Young Girl Leaving the Hill Country

The hills are wroth; the stones have scored you bitterly
Because you looked upon the naked sun
Oblivious of them, because you did not see
The trees you touched or mountains that you walked upon.

But there will come a day of darkness in the land,
A day wherein remembered sun alone comes through
To mark the hills; then perhaps you’ll understand

Arna Bontemps

1927

Poems

A Black Man Talks of Reaping

More by this poet

The Return

To a Young Girl Leaving the Hill Country

Golgotha Is a Mountain

Poems

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A Black Man Talks of Reaping

More by this poet

The Return

To a Young Girl Leaving the Hill Country

Golgotha Is a Mountain

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