Claude McKay: December, 1919

Last night I heard your voice, mother,

The words you sang to me

When I, a little barefoot boy,

Knelt down against your knee.

.

And tears gushed from my heart, mother,

And passed beyond its wall,

But though the fountain reached my throat

The drops refused to fall.

.

‘Tis ten years since you died, mother,

Just ten dark years of pain,

And oh, I only wish that I

Could weep just once again.

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Public Domain

Festus Claudius “Claude” McKay (1889 – 1948) was a Jamaican journalist, fiction writer and poet, who was a seminal figure in the Harlem Renaissance. He wrote four novels: Home to Harlem (1928), a best-seller that won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature, Banjo (1929), Banana Bottom (1933), and in 1941 a manuscript called Amiable With Big Teeth: A Novel of the Love Affair Between the Communists and the Poor Black Sheep of Harlem which remained unpublished until 2017. McKay also authored collections of poetry, a collection of short stories, Gingertown (1932), two autobiographical books, A Long Way from Home (1937) and My Green Hills of Jamaica (published posthumously), and a non-fiction, socio-historical treatise entitled Harlem: Negro Metropolis (1940). His 1922 poetry collection, Harlem Shadows, was among the first books published during the Harlem Renaissance. His Selected Poems was published posthumously, in 1953. (Bio adapted from Wikipedia)