To an artist.

When Langston wrote to me, I was nine. Hold fast to dreams, for if they die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams, for if they go, life is a barren field frozen with snow.

College was a distant landscape of opportunity. Out of reach. Impossible. Langston wrote to me in bold magic marker print on a cardstock poster on Mrs. Lynch’s classroom wall. You may carve a dream with an humble tool.

There were sacrifices, sleepless nights, cold sweats before the SATs, financial aid applications. These were my hopes on the cusp of hopelessness, accompanied unfailingly by countless moments of quiet terror playing out a life that ended up outside of my way out, my alternative.

Into that silence, Langston spoke.

What happens to a dream deferred?

I was certain it went somewhere, whether dried, festering or sweet. He was not my father, but I listened to his voice as dear counsel. The dream deferred explodes, he said, press on, press on.

He was not my mother, but he nurtured me up stairs with tacks and splinters and boards torn up. He told me that there were others still going, still climbing, when I was alone with a text book, a desk lamp, and my insecurities.

When Langston wrote to me, I was nine. Now I’m grown, and The Collected Poems, a gift from a graduate school mentor, often call to me from my bookshelf.

He's written them all, The Panther and the Lash, Shakespeare in Harlem, Fine Clothes to the Jew, but it's my letter that's dogeared. When the realities of childhood or the turning points of  adolescence would have claimed me, I go back to the simple rhythms first implanted in my soul.

Hold fast to dreams. The pulses that revived me when I might’ve given in.

Instead, I stood there and hollered, and I often stood there and cried, but I’ll be dogged, sweet baby, if he was gonna see me die.

When Langston wrote to me, I was nine. My life wasn't always beautiful, but it was worth loving and changing.

So thank you, Langston, who adopted his people's heartbreak to birth them blues, who adopted a little girl’s sacred wishes and, in so doing, lifted them away from the too-rough fingers of the world.

Thank you to anyone who’s ever taught a child something that couldn’t be quantified.

Because when she’s grown, it may be an artist, never afraid to do what he must choose,
to whom she's writing back.