Dream Variations
To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
Dark like me-
That is my dream!
To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening...
A tall, slim tree...
Night coming tenderly
Black like me.
--Langston Hughes
(Never knew where Griffin's title came from, and now I do. The book I found this in got the poem's title wrong, though. Variations, plural.)
Meanwhile, Will Ferguson gets something very right. (Am glad. Do not like thinking badly of fellow Canadians.)
Japan is not the Land of the Broken-Hearted, it is the Land of the Wounded Pride. It is not that I want inside and can't that bothers me. I do not want to be Japanese. What rankles my Western heart is that it doesn't matter what I do or do not want."Ayup. For once we don't get to dictate the terms of the interaction, and ohhh does that burn.
