After the Winter
Claude Mckay–1889–1948

Someday, when trees have shed their leaves
And against the morning white
The shivering birds beneath eves
Have sheltered for the night,
We’ll turn our faces southward, love,
Toward the summer isle
Where bamboos spire to shafted grove
And wide mouthed orchids smile.

And we’ll seek the quiet hill
Where towers the cotton tree,
And leaps the laughing crystal rill,
And works the droning bee.
And we’ll build the cottage there
Beside an open glade,
With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near,
And ferns that never fade.

Claude Mckay, who was born in Jamaica in 1889,
wrote about social and political concerns from
his perspective as a black man in the United States,
as well as a variety of subjects ranging from
his Jamaican homeland to romantic love.