“A Little Girl’s Poem” “Mother to Son”

by Gwendolyn Brooks by Langston Hughes

Life is for me and is shining! Well, son, I'll tell you:
Inside me I Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
feel stars and sun and bells singing. It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
There are children in the world And boards torn up,
all around me and beyond me— And places with no carpet on the floor—
here, and beyond the big waters; Bare.
here, and in countries peculiar to themselves. But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
I want the children to live and to laugh. And reachin' landin's,
I want them to sit with their mothers and fathers And turnin' corners,
and have happy cocoa together. And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
I do not want So, boy, don't you turn back.
fire screaming up the sky. Don't you set down on the steps.
I do not want 'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
families killed in their doorways. Don't you fall now—
For I'se still goin', honey,
Life is for us, for the children. I'se still climbin',
Life is for mothers and fathers, And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
life is for the tall girls and boys
in high school on Henderson Street,
is for the people in Afrikan tents,
the people in English cathedrals,
the people in Indian courtyards;
the people in cottages all over the world.

Life is for us, and is shining.

We have a right to sing.