A little while,
Too brief at most,
And even my smile
Will be a ghost.
Countee Cullen, excerpt from To You Who Read My Book in Color (1925)
A little while,
Too brief at most,
And even my smile
Will be a ghost.
Countee Cullen, excerpt from To You Who Read My Book in Color (1925)
But what have I, but what have I, my friend,
To give you, what can you receive from me?
Only the friendship and the sympathy
Of one about to reach her journey’s end.
I shall sit here, serving tea to friends ….
Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know
What life is, you who hold it in your hands
(Slowly twisting the lilac stalks)
You let it flow from you, you let it flow,
And youth is cruel, and has no remorse
And smiles at situations which it cannot see.