Hold fast to dreams. For when dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.

Langston Hughes birthed these words and today, I will try to unpack them, offering an analysis, if you will. I first heard this poem at the University of Maryland Baltimore County’s Meyerhoff Selection weekend. UMBC was one of the schools where I was offered a full academic scholarship and sometimes I still wonder what my life would have been like had I been under the keen and watchful eye of THE President Hrabowski. He is who taught me this poem and left the imprint of it’s possibilities on my mind. For that, I am grateful.

“Hold fast to dreams…

Hughes must have known that it is a privilege to dream. Every man sleeps, but not every man dreams, just as every bird has wings but not every bird flys. Being that it is…