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By Gwendolyn Brooks

And if sun comes

How shall we greet him?

Shall we not dread him,

Shall we not fear him

After so lengthy a

Session with shade?


Though we have wept for him,

Though we have prayed

All through the night-years—

What if we wake one shimmering morning to

Hear the fierce hammering

Of his firm knuckles

Hard on the door?


Shall we not shudder?—

Shall we not flee

Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter

Of the familiar

Propitious haze?


Sweet is it, sweet is it

To sleep in the coolness

Of snug unawareness.


The dark hangs heavily

Over the eyes.

 

 

 


Gwendolyn Brooks, "truth" from Blacks. Copyright © 1987 by Gwendolyn Brooks.  Reprinted by consent of Brooks Permissions.

Source: Blacks (Third World Press, 1987)

  • Living

Poet Bio

Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas, though she spent most of her life on Chicago’s south side, whose Bronzeville neighborhood she memorialized in her poetry. She received the Pulitzer Prize — the first African American so honored — for Annie Allen in 1950.  At age 68 Brooks was the first black woman appointed Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Later she served as Poet Laureate of Illinois, personally funding literary award ceremonies and visiting grade schools, colleges, universities, prisons, hospitals, and drug rehabilitation centers. She was devoted to encouraging young people to write. See More By This Poet

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