My Son, the Emcee, is a Dream Come True

My son’s school had a special program for Black History Month yesterday.

When we got there, Kai was at his desk hugging one of his favorite classroom aides.

He then asked to go to the bathroom. And he wanted to make sure that the teacher wouldn’t start the program without him.

When he got back, it was time to start.

Kai joined his classmates up front for the first song, which was somewhat of a relief for us after what happened at the holiday concert in December.

After the whole group sang a song, some kids performed the scene where Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus. Later, other kids read poems together.

Finally, Kai was called up to the front of the room. He had the only solo. He would read the poem Dreams, by Langston Hughes.

Wikipedia tells me that Hughes was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry.

Kai did Mr. Hughes proud.

As he went up to the front of the class, Kai didn’t just read the poem. He announced that this was the last performance. He asked the audience to raise their hands if they liked the show. Of course, everyone did.

Finally, he read the poem:

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

He read loudly and clearly. And when he finished, he got great applause. And then he started to ad lib some more and probably would have gone on if his teacher didn’t shoo him off.

At one time, it was a dream for us that our son would be able to speak like this. Now he is chatting away like an emcee.

Hold fast to dreams, everyone. Hold fast.