Speaks 100 years on even more powerfully to the USA we now witness

Langston Hughes 1901 – 1967

Thanks, Project Gutenberg

Now this sits in my eBook Library on Calibre.

Poème d’Automne

Langston Hughes

The autumn leaves
Are too heavy with color.
The slender trees
On the Vulcan Road
Are dressed in scarlet and gold
Like young courtesans
Waiting for their lovers.
But soon
The winter winds
Will strip their bodies bare
And then
The sharp, sleet-stung
Caresses of cold
Will be their only
Love.

Language note

I agree with this site: A Note on Historical Language: ‘Negro,’ ‘Colored,’ ‘Black,’ and ‘African American’.

To be clear, in describing people of African descent in one’s own words, it is appropriate to use contemporary standard usage (“Black” or “African American”). The other terms described below may today be obsolete or anachronistic, but when used in historical context they should not be “offensive.” 

This obviously applies to Langston Hughes, but also to Mark Twain. There have been absurd attempts to ban or “revise” Huckleberry Finn because it used the N-word in the 19th Century!

That is first-rate! Do not just pass over it!