A Dream Deferred

Whew! I'm tired tonight. I worked like crazy in my yard today, planting, pruning, cleaning up my garden bench. It was fatiguing but wonderful. I love fixing things up and making something pretty out of the ordinary or unsightly.

That was a hard part of life in Haiti for me. There was no way to clean it all, fix it all, make it all pretty. And now? Oh my word... I just shake my head in sorrowful amazement. And I think of all the people I know who live there, because they have to live there. They don't have a way out or they would probably take it. And I think of those who could leave and don't because they want to make a difference. I wonder if knowing they could leave makes it easier to stay?

I think of those who were just beginning to make it, had a little home, a job, tried to save a bit of money toward a real future and then... gone, in a heartbeat, forever gone. They pray and they sing and they hope and they work, work, work! I have never seen people work so hard for so little.

I was going through some poetry today, getting my mind ready for the school year and ran across Langston Hughes' poem:

"Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--
And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

I think it's all of the above, especially the explode part.