You are disdainful and magnificant—
Your perfect body and your pompous gait,
Your dark eyes flashing solemnly with hate,
Small wonder that you are incompetent
To imitate those whom you so despise—
Your shoulders towering high above the throng,
Your head thrown back in rich, barbaric song,
Palm trees and mangoes stretched before your eyes.
Let others toil and sweat for labor's sake
And wring from grasping hands their need of gold.
Why urge ahead your supercilious feet?
Scorn will efface each footprint that you make.
I love your laughter arrogant and bold.
You are too splendid for this city street.
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I think a lot is said here about a people and a time, Harlem was a symbol of Black social and economic status, probably had so much more in meaningful symbolism within a national community of Black people, forced into separation by the larger society, made its own marks of status, and importance: here the urbane and sophisticated personified as a stroll down a street where seeing and being seen...mattered so much...PK
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