Remember the sky that you were born under,

know each of the star’s stories.

Remember the moon, know who she is.

Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the

strongest point of time. Remember sundown

and the giving away to night.

Remember your birth, how your mother struggled

to give you form and breath. You are evidence of

her life, and her mother’s, and hers.

Remember your father. He is your life, also.

Remember the earth whose skin you are:

red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth

brown earth, we are earth.

Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their

tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,

listen to them. They are alive poems.

Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the

origin of this universe.

Remember you are all people and all people

are you.

Remember you are this universe and this

universe is you.

Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.

Remember language comes from this.

Remember the dance language is, that life is.

Remember.

From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published by Knopf and Vintage Books. Copyright © 1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes. All rights reserved. 

Can we agree Kevlar

backpacks shouldn’t be needed

for children walking to school? 

Those same children

also shouldn’t require a suit

of armor when standing

on their front lawns, or snipers

to watch their backs

as they eat at McDonalds.

They shouldn’t have to stop

to consider the speed

of a bullet or how it might

reshape their bodies. But

one winter, back in Detroit,

I had one student

who opened a door and died. 

It was the front

door to his house, but

it could have been any door,

and the bullet could have written

any name. The shooter

was thirteen years old

and was aiming

at someone else. But

a bullet doesn’t care

about “aim,” it doesn’t

distinguish between

the innocent and the innocent,

and how was the bullet

supposed to know this

child would open the door

at the exact wrong moment

because his friend

was outside and screaming

for help. Did I say

I had “one” student who

opened a door and died? 

That’s wrong.

There were many. 

The classroom of grief

had far more seats

than the classroom for math

though every student

in the classroom for math

could count the names

of the dead. 

A kid opens a door. The bullet

couldn’t possibly know,

nor could the gun, because

“guns don’t kill people,” they don’t

have minds to decide

such things, they don’t choose

or have a conscience,

and when a man doesn’t

have a conscience, we call him

a psychopath. This is how

we know what type of assault rifle

a man can be,

and how we discover

the hell that thrums inside

each of them. Today,

there’s another

shooting with dead

kids everywhere. It was a school,

a movie theater, a parking lot.

The world

is full of doors.

And you, whom I cannot save,

you may open a door

and enter a meadow, or a eulogy.

And if the latter, you will be

mourned, then buried

in rhetoric. 

There will be

monuments of legislation,

little flowers made

from red tape. 

What should we do? we’ll ask

again. The earth will close

like a door above you. 

And that click you hear?

That’s just our voices,

the deadbolt of discourse

sliding into place.

Copyright © 2016 by Matthew Olzmann. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 5, 2016, by the Academy of American Poets.

describe something they can’t do

sometimes they might want to be sadistic

sprinkle it with a dash of realistic and

say it’s near enough impossible nyam

possible they’d like you to think you’re

lying in hospital for the fog and

obstacles and trying not to fool but

they’re impossible as am I impossible

there are no winners until someone’s

wanting she won’t know what I’m capable

of until I’ve done it I could ever stand

here patient and listen wanting to make

an incision having to wait for

permission or I could make a decision

and I could take a position impossible

is the manifestation of your inhibitions

so fear of trying in his fear of flying

your mind’s racing in your heart is an

ounce of help they’re turning against

you and you’re starting to doubt

yourself the nights were cold in the

mornings are rough now you’re worrying

about people calling your bluff

second-guessing your ability and order

your stuff but no you alone is more than

enough this is the truth I saw before I

went to sleep I knew my time would come

eventually so I celebrate every test

that was sent to me because what’s about

to be was meant to be it’s remarkable to

try but I can’t afford to die no when my

ambition didn’t kill me forget the voice

of reason listen to the room no guts no

glory

you

But I won't let them break me down to dust
I know that there's a place for us
For we are glorious

When the sharpest words wanna cut me down
I'm gonna send a flood, gonna drown 'em out
I am brave, I am bruised
I am who I'm meant to be, this is me
Look out 'cause here I come
And I'm marching on to the beat I drum
I'm not scared to be seen
I make no apologies, this is me

Another round of bullets hits my skin
Well, fire away 'cause today, I won't let the shame sink in
We are bursting through the barricades and
Reaching for the sun (we are warriors)
Yeah, that's what we've become

I won't let them break me down to dust
I know that there's a place for us
For we are glorious

When the sharpest words wanna cut me down
I'm gonna send a flood, gonna drown 'em out
I am brave, I am bruised
I am who I'm meant to be, this is me
Look out 'cause here I come
And I'm marching on to the beat I drum
I'm not scared to be seen
I make no apologies, this is me

This me

And I know that I deserve your love
There's nothing I'm not worthy of

When the sharpest words wanna cut me down
I'm gonna send a flood, gonna drown 'em out
This is brave, this is bruised
This is who I'm meant to be, this is me

Look out 'cause here I come (look out 'cause here I come)
And I'm marching on to the beat I drum
I'm not scared to be seen
I make no apologies, this is me

When the sharpest words wanna cut me down
I'm gonna send a flood, gonna drown 'em out
I'm gonna send a flood
Gonna drown 'em out
Oh
This is me

We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.

We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.

We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—

Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.

Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,
But we read this book, anyway, over and again:

Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.

You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me

What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made

Something greater from the difference.