Color (Cullen)/Brown Boy to Brown Girl

by Countee Cullen

Brown Boy to Brown Girl

(Remembrance on a hill) (For Yolande)

"AS surely as I hold your hand in mine,As surely as your crinkled hair beliesThe enamoured sun pretending that he diesWhile still he loiters in its glossy shine,As surely as I break the slender lineThat spider linked us with, in no least wiseAm I uncertain that these alien skiesDo not our whole life measure and confine.No less, once in a land of scarlet sunsAnd brooding winds, before the hurricaneBore down upon us, long before this pain,We found a place where quiet water runs;I held your hand this way upon a hill,And felt my heart forebear, my pulse grow still."