A Dream Deferred,  A Taste Of Sugar Hill,  Betty Mae Peters,  Langston Hughes,  New York

What Happens to A Dream Deferred?

February 28, 2012 /

When I think about the process of writing my mother’s memoirs of Sugar Hill, my mind reflects on  Langston Hughes and one of his famous poems, “A Dream Deferred”.

What Happens to A Dream Deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over?
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

I will not allow my mother’s dream of being published die and rot.  I feel the urgency of her stories wanting to be shared.  Did she feel like Langston Hughes when he scribed these words on paper? She deferred her dreams of pursuing her career in journalism, because as she put it, “Discrimination was live and well” and “I must be practical.”  She took no risk…Why?

I could hear her say, “One day I will…”  “One day when I have time..”

That time never came…or did it?

“Does the Dream come first or does the dreamer?”

Is it the dreamer that moves on?  Is it the Dream that remains?  Who will pick up the mantel of the dream?
Will it be you?

I will not listen to the word, “wait!”  “We have waited far too long!”

“Why must we wait?”

“If not now?

When?”

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