"my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell"

May you encounter no monsters today. May you hold your honey if monsters do pass by.

my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell

by Gwendolyn Brooks

I hold my honey and I store my bread
In little jars and cabinets of my will.
I label clearly, and each latch and lid
I bid, Be firm till I return from hell.
I am very hungry. I am incomplete.
And none can tell when I may dine again.
No man can give me any word but Wait,
The puny light. I keep eyes pointed in;
Hoping that, when the devil days of my hurt
Drag out to their last dregs and I resume
On such legs as are left me, in such heart
As I can manage, remember to go home,
My taste will not have turned insensitive
To honey and bread old purity could love.

from Selected Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks. Copyright © 1963

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Your Creative Invitation

Place one thing in a little cabinet or jar. Put one experience or observation from this time on paper. Imagine a person reading it in 380 years—tasting what you taste.

Art 1: Detail from George Baxter’s Print of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs (ca. 1854), London

Art 2: A Collection of Very Valuable and Scarce Pieces relating to the Last Plague in the Year 1665 (1721), Public Domain