African American Poetry (1870-1928): A Digital Anthology

Mae V. Cowdery, "Want" (1928)

I want to take down with my hands
The silver stars
That grow in heaven's dark blue meadows
And bury my face in them.

I want to wrap all around me
The silver shedding of the moon
To keep me warm.

I want to sell my soul
To the wind in a song
To keep me from crying in the night.

I want to wake and find
That I have slept the day away,
Only nights are kind now . . . 
With the stars . . . moons . . . winds and me . . . 


Published in The Crisis, November 1928

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