Monday, December 28, 2009

Aunt Sue's Stories

Aunt Sue has a head full of stories.
Aunt Sue has a whole heart full of stories.
Summer nights on the front porch
Aunt Sue cuddles a brown-faced child to her bosom
And tells him stories.

Black slaves
Working in the hot sun,
And black slaves
Walking in the dewy night,
And black slaves
Singing sorrow songs on the banks of a mighty river
Mingle themselves softly
In the flow of old Aunt Sue's voice,
Mingle themselves softly
In the dark shadows that cross and recross
Aunt Sue's stories.

And the dark-faced child, listening,
Knows that Aunt Sue's stories are real stories.
He knows that Aunt Sue never got her stories
Out of any book at all,
But that they came
Right out of her own life.

The dark-faced child is quiet
Of a summer night
Listening to Aunt Sue's stories.


Langston Hughes' "Aunt Sue's Stories" is a simple story of an aunt, presumably his, who tells stories of her past.

The first thing that comes to mind is the time my great-grandmother regaled stories about my mother as a child. My great-grandmother, who we called Monie, was born in 1911, so you can imagine the stories that were told to my sister and I. We were truly blessed to have the rare opportunity to travel back in time to get a glimpse of how things were and how they have changed; through the medium of "Monie's Stories."

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