As I Grew Older

It was beautiful, and fitting, After the melancholy dusk, That I should walk In a white field, And in a black sky— The memories are still, Gravitating towards the hearts That bathe in the soft, fading light, And Just a little twinkle above, A single star in the dusk of fleeting time.

I grow older, and in the dark, I grow older still, longing for what was— Yet, burn in the heart, a living flame. With the ache of age.

The dusk begins to deepen, Day is shadowed against the whisper, The rhythm of a soft heartbeat, Tell of bright lilacs and violets, rays of sun. When I reach, but softly, Yet so clear for all I yearn.

Ah yes, the river’s call, Like the strength of the mountains that hold In the valleys the cries of night, Is sweet, prophetic, and near. . Time has the ground as it seeks, its secret rhythm, But even as I grow older, the heart holds tight, The twilight’s shadow must not take my stillness.

—Langston Hughes

• Langston Hughes