Although it’s called “A Little Girl’s Poem”, it’s definitely not just for little girls.
It’s for anyone that wants to live in a world where they can inhale hope and not fear. Where the “go to“ is respect and not hate. It’s for everyone who believes they have “a right to sing“.
So, this week we have just one suggestion for comments.
Think of one thing you can do to bring our world closer to this little girl’s vision.
“A Little Girl’s Poem”
Life is for me and is shining! Inside me I
feel stars and sun and bells singing.
There are children in the world
all around me and beyond me—
here, and beyond the big waters;
here, and in countries peculiar to themselves.
I want the children to live and to laugh.
I want them to sit with their mothers and fathers
and have happy cocoa together.
I do not want
fire screaming up the sky.
I do not want
families killed in their doorways.
Life is for us, for the children.
Life is for mothers and fathers,
life is for the tall girls and boys
in high school on Henderson Street,
is for the people in Afrikan tents,
the people in English cathedrals,
the people in Indian courtyards;
the people in cottages all over the world.
Life is for us, and is shining. We have a right to sing.
NOTE: This poem became a picture book!
WE ARE SHINING
poem by Gwendolyn Brooks
illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist
HarperCollins Publishers
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