Undeferment

What happens to a dream deferred?

      Does it dry up
      like a raisin in the sun?

“Harlem,” Langston Hughes

I am poor
I guess
I have the words
And some temerity
(rubbed
with facts)
To say

And I wonder
If the poor
Can dream or
May

Because dreams require
Some funding
To live as vision
And idea
In the daytime
Or
After sleep whenever

Some apparatus
Finally
That might build something
Even with reason
And approval

Yet
After food
That is
And safe water
Shelter
And compulsory education

Voting

And some will say
We shouldn’t
Dream

Citing something like
Chains of being
Or in spirit
Shall have a realm
Not here
For sure

Rather
Then
To pass a rule to take
Those dreams
Our dreams
Away

Citing
Some might say
The classes as distinctions
Though we have only made them
Out of balsam

And so not in the realm
Of real
Lasting places
But only signs to keep
The oligarchy ready
And plutarchy
As well

Because
Oppression manufactured
By the way
Has begged our revolutions

But peace
Better ideas
Should prevail
From all
Of us
And all of us allowed
The dream

To have it
Work it
And to play
With
Only barricades
That any might encounter
While
Waking

So we may all
Dream dreams
Asleep
Alert
Without deferment

C L Couch

“’In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy . . .”

Peter talking to a crowd, citing Joel
Acts 2:17(a)
NIV


Photo by Kostiantyn Li on Unsplash