Hughes—Stars

By Scott Horton

O, sweep of stars over Harlem streets,

O, little breath of oblivion that is night.

A city building

To a mother’s song.

A city dreaming

To a lullaby.

Reach up your hand, dark boy, and take a star.

Out of the little breath of oblivion

That is night,

Take just

One star.

–Langston Hughes, Stars (1921) in The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, p. 85.