People [by Jean Toomer -- Harlem Renaissance Poet/Writer]

from The Collected Poems of Jean Toomer (Poet of the Harlem Renaissance)






To those fixed on white,

White is white,

To those fixed on black,

It is the same,

And red is red,

Yellow, yellow-

Surely there are such sights

In the many colored world,

Or in the mind.

The strange thing is that

These people never see themselves

Or you, or me.



Are they not in their minds?

Are we not in the world?

This is a curious blindness

For those that are color blind.

What queer beliefs

That men who believe in sights

Disbelieve in seers.




O people, if you but used

Your other eyes

You would see beings.

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