A Poem for Richard

By E. Ethelbert Miller

At two and three in the morning

when sleep walks away like a lover

I think of Richard Wright

Dead at fifty-two

He lived in a small apartment in France

alone without Ellen or the kids

A few days before Wright died

Langston Hughes knocked on his door

Here was the poet of Harlem

saying hello to the black boy and native son

I think about Langston looking

into Richard's eyes and searching for a river

Maybe the Mississippi moving one more day

down the delta with the blues

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