Silhouette
A moon poem by Langston Hughes. In the present climate it needs little comment: only to note that ‘in the dark of the moon’ introduces a series of sharp inversions to the binaries of darkness and light, followed closely by black/white, and most bitterly, bad/good; all of which might make us doubt we always ‘see’ so clearly the darknesses in language such as ‘gentle’ and ‘protects’.
Silhouette
Southern gentle lady
Do not swoon.
They’ve just hung a black man
In the dark of the moon.They’ve hung a black man
To a roadside tree
In the dark of the moon
For the world to see
How Dixie protects
Its white womanhood.Southern gentle lady,
Be good!
Be good!
thebicyclops 