“Bouquet” by Langston Hughes

Posted on September 9, 2021September 9, 2021 by Victoria Emily Jones

Chihuly, Dale_Kobe Japan Workshop Ikebana Drawing — Dale Chihuly (American, 1941–), *Kobe Japan Workshop Ikebana Drawing*, 1997. Mixed media on paper. Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones.

Gather quickly
Out of darkness
All the songs you know
And throw them at the sun
Before they melt
Like snow.

This poem was originally published in the Colorado Review’s Spring/Summer 1957 issue, and it appears in The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, ed. Arnold Rampersad (Knopf, 1994; Vintage Books, 1995).