Daybreak in Alabama
Photo by Robert Ray/Associated Press Francine Rollins and Rondroka Long sat amid the rubble of their neighborhood in Tuscaloosa, Alabama Daybreak in Alabama by Langston Hughes When I get to be a composer I’m gonna write me some music about Daybreak in Alabama And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist And falling out of heaven like soft dew. I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it And the scent of pine needles And the smell of red clay after rain And long red necks And poppy colored faces And big brown arms And the field daisy eyes Of black and white black white black people And I’m gonna put white hands And black hands and brown and yellow hands And red clay earth hands in it Touching everybody with kind fingers And touching each other natural as dew In that dawn of music when I Get to be a composer And write about daybreak In Alabama. Please donate to tornado relief for the South at: American Red Cross And please buy the poem here: Knopf
