I Have
When I see and touch myself
I, John, a Nobody only yesterday,
and today John with everything,
and today with everything.
I glance around, I look,
I see and touch myself
and I wonder how could it happen.
I have, let's see,
I have the pleasure of walking through my country,
master of all there is in it,
looking very closely at that which
I couldn't have, nor could have had before.
I can say, sugarcane crop,
I can say, mountain,
I can say, city,
I can say, army,
now mine forever, yours, ours,
and a vast splendour
of sunbeam, star, flower.
I have, let's see,
I have the pleasure of going,
I, a peasant, a worker, a simple man,
I have the pleasure of going
(just an example)
to a bank and talking to the manager,
not in English,
not as 'Sir',
but calling him 'companero' as we say in Spanish.
I have, let's see,
that being Black
no one can stop me
at the door of a dance hall or a bar.
Or even at the hotel reception
yelling at me there are no rooms
not a tiny room, not a large one
or a small room where I might rest.
I have, let's see,
there are no rural police
to seize me and lock me in jail
or uproot me from my land
and throw me in the middle of the highway.
Having the land, I have the sea,
no country club,
no high life,
no tennis and no yacht
but from beach to beach and wave on wave,
gigantic, blue, open, democratic:
in short, the sea.
I have, let's see,
I've already learnt to read
to count,
I've already learnt to write,
to think,
to laugh.
I have, now,
a place to work
and I can earn
what I have to eat.
I have, let's see,
I have, what was coming to me.
_______________________________
