81 lines
2.1 KiB
Markdown
81 lines
2.1 KiB
Markdown
---
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created_at: '2013-06-12T04:11:40.000Z'
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title: '"Let America Be America Again" by Langston Hughes (1935)'
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url: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15609
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author: mksm
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points: 89
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story_text: ''
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 4
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story_id:
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story_title:
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story_url:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1371010300
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_mksm
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- story_5866498
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objectID: '5866498'
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year: 1935
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---
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When Hades decided he loved this girl
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he built for her a duplicate of earth,
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everything the same, down to the meadow,
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but with a bed added.
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Everything the same, including sunlight,
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because it would be hard on a young girl
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to go so quickly from bright light to utter darkness
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Gradually, he thought, he'd introduce the night,
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first as the shadows of fluttering leaves.
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Then moon, then stars. Then no moon, no stars.
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Let Persephone get used to it slowly.
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In the end, he thought, she'd find it comforting.
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A replica of earth
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except there was love here.
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Doesn't everyone want love?
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He waited many years,
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building a world, watching
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Persephone in the meadow.
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Persephone, a smeller, a taster.
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If you have one appetite, he thought,
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you have them all.
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Doesn't everyone want to feel in the night
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the beloved body, compass, polestar,
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to hear the quiet breathing that says
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I am alive, that means also
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you are alive, because you hear me,
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you are here with me. And when one turns,
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the other turns—
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That's what he felt, the lord of darkness,
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looking at the world he had
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constructed for Persephone. It never crossed his mind
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that there'd be no more smelling here,
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certainly no more eating.
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Guilt? Terror? The fear of love?
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These things he couldn't imagine;
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no lover ever imagines them.
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He dreams, he wonders what to call this place.
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First he thinks: The New Hell. Then: The Garden.
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In the end, he decides to name it
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Persephone's Girlhood.
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A soft light rising above the level meadow,
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behind the bed. He takes her in his arms.
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He wants to say I love you, nothing can hurt you
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but he thinks
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this is a lie, so he says in the end
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you're dead, nothing can hurt you
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which seems to him
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a more promising beginning, more true.
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