Welcome back to The Daily Poem. I'm David Kern, and today is Tuesday, September 15th, 2020.

Today's poem is by a Jamaican poet, Festus Claudius McKay. He went by Claude McKay. He lived from

1889 to 1948 and was one of the key figures, key poets, in the Harlem Renaissance.

McKay was a very interesting man.

He wrote most famously by Green Hills of Jamaica,

which was published posthumously

and was a semi-autobiographical book.

And he wrote a lot of poetry as well.

You know, you can find his selected poems,

probably online pretty easily.

The poem that I'm going to read today is called Subway Wind. find his selected poems, probably online pretty easily.

The poem that I'm going to read today is called Subway Wind.

This is how it goes.

Far down, down through the city's great gaunt gut, the gray train rushing bears the weary wind.

In the packed cars, the fans, the crowd's breath cut, leaving the sick and heavy air behind.

And pale-cheeked children seek the upper door to give their summer jackets to the breeze.

Their laugh is swallowed in the deafening roar of captive wind that moans for fields and seas.

Seas cooling warm where native schooners drift through sleepy waters,

while gulls wheel and sweep, waiting for windy waves the keels to lift lightly among the islands of the deep.

Islands of lofty palm trees blooming white that led their perfume to the tropic sea, where fields lie idle and the dew drenched night,

and the trades float above them fresh and free.

It shouldn't be a surprise, I suppose, that one of the more famous poets of the Harlem Renaissance would write a poem that is about freedom that ends with the words, fresh and free, in fact.

...