After Langston Hughes

Some swear “America will be!”
What has America been to me?
Parents' parents came here bereft
Found a better place than they left
And here almost a century
We’ve lingered – yet eventually
We will move on. Is this a dream
Better, greater than those we’ve seen?

Should we have stayed in Babylon?
Settled in the empire of Rome?
Converted to the faith of Spain?
Upheld the Tsar, not left again?

Langston says we must redeem
The rotting flower of the dream
The beauty that hides in its bloom
Our Leader and our own rape rooms
Can America be made real?
Hasn’t by now, it never will
Always ahead, that’s what I’ve heard:
What happens to a dream deferred?

This place is mighty crush the weak
A dream is not the world we seek
What our history has made clear
You die for dreams: you aren't here