"You did alright in your day, I reckon --
"But that day's gone now.
"They ghosted you up a swell story, too,
"Called it Bible --
"But it's dead now."
That exegesis of Langston Hughes would puzzle Democratic delegates in Boston in July, vibrant with life and mission. And it wasn't just that Langston Hughes had had a one-night stand with skepticism, along the way to capturing the need to let America be America again. No, Mr. Hughes had a very specific view about history, and his view was clear on the question of which historical road America should travel:
"Goodbye,
"Christ Jesus Lord God Jehovah,
"Beat it on away from here now.
"Make way for a new guy with no religion at all --
"A real guy named
"Marx Communist Lenin Peasant Stalin Worker ME.
Langston Hughes was asking America to "be America again," meaning, not an America that history had known and chronicled, but an America realizable in a new and different vision. The land of Marx and Lenin and Stalin. Mr. Kerry's campaign team is going to have serious homework to do before introducing Langston Hughes as the poet laureate of the Democratic Party in 2004.