I Am Still Here!

Hello Dish-friends. Time to resume our weekly discussions. April is National Poetry Month so we will savor a few well-loved poems and some fresh discoveries. This weeks title grabs from African American poet Langston Hughes. There is no science or allusion in making this selection (and others to follow) except that it brings us back after a brief hiatus. If there is anything to take from these selections is how to channel the powerful emotions in reaction to life’s experiences in healthy, constructive ways. Mr. Hughes captured the zeitgeist of his time, conveying the indomitable spirit of “people who keep on going.”

Still Here
I been scared and battered.

My hopes the wind done scattered.

Snow has friz me,

Sun has baked me,

Looks like between ’em they done

Tried to make me

Stop laughin’, stop lovin’, stop livin’--

But I don’t care!

I’m still here!

Haha! Can't help loving that blasé punctuation, I am still here! We are still here. Our world may be shaking up, earthquakes in the literal sense, and economically, politically, ideologically among other ways. Even so we are a scrappy lot who have lots to be thankful for. We once reached for the moon and there we planted our flag. Now we reach for Mars; from seed to harvest…

Still Here reminds me of a similar affirmation of life and our common threads, presented here selectively (space and attention spans withstanding) from Walt Whitman’s collection.

Song of Myself
1.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

6.

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands,

How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

A scented gift and remembrance designedly dropt,

Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,

And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,

Growing among black folks as among white,

Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.

31.

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than a journey-work of the stars,

52.

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,

I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world.

Song of Myself invites us to compassionate experience; a disparate lot we might be but our humanity, democracy, and mortality ties us all together. Rather than turn our hierarchical tendencies on ourselves, let us instead reach for the stars and sound our mighty YAWP over the galaxies.

Let's get it!

Peace and blessings