James Weldon Johnson

Something made me go to my bookshelf earlier. When I was in high school I had a favorite poet I've thought about every couple of years that I want to talk about. James Weldon Johnson was a Negro writer. That line sure sounds funny but I'm taking it directly out of my high school lit book. I loved one poem that he wrote called "The Creation" that I kept the book. He wrote with such feeling. Let me show you just a little:

An God stepped out on space,
And He looked around and said,
"I'm lonely -
I'll make me a world."
As far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Balacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.

Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said, "That's good!"

There is so much more to this poem and to me it is such a work of art