The following poems are all by, Dr. Maya Angelou. They include the poem she read at President Clinton's 1993 inauguration, a poem she wrote for the television show "Touched By an Angel" and the poem she read for the United Nation's 50th anniversary.
Touched By an Angel We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles frome delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.
We are weaned frome our timidilty
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave.
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings A free bird leaps on the back of the wind
and floats downstream till the current ends
and dips his wing in the orange sun rays and dare to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage
can seldom see through his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his
throat to sing.
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings ofl freedom.
The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and he names
the sky his own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
ahis wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his
throat to sing.
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom
The following is what Dr. Angelou read at President Clinton's 1993 inauguration On The Pulse of Morning A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the Mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distand destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow
I will give you no hiding place down here.
You, created only a little lower than
The angels, havee crouched to long in
The bruising darkness
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance
Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter
The Rock cries out to us today, you stand on me,
But do not hide your face.
Across the wall lof the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
It says, come rest here by my side.
Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrursting perpetually under siege
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
If yyou will study war no more. Come,
Clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creato r gave to me when I and the
Tree and the Rock were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.
The River sings and sings on.
There is a true yearning to respond to
The Singing River and the wise rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew,
the African, the Native American, the Sioux,
the Catholic, The Muslim, The French, The Greek,
the Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
the Gay, the straight, the Preacher,
the Privileged, The Homeless, The Teacher.
They all hear,
the speaking of the Tree.
They hear the first and last of every tree,
Speak to humankind today, Come to me, here beside the river.
Plant yourself beside me, here beside the river.
Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveler, has been paid for.
You, who gave me my first name, you
Pawnee, Apache, Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of
Other seekers-- desperate for gain,
starving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Arab, the Swede, the German, the Eskimo, the Scot,
You, the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am that Tree planted by the River,
I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree,
I am yours--your Passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
for this bright morning dawing for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Can not be unlived, but if faced,
with courage, need not be lived again.
Lift up your eyes upon
This day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.
Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your heart,
Each new hour holds new chances
for new beginnings..
Do not be wedded forever,
to fear, yoked eternally.
to brutishness.
The horizon leans forward,
offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day,
You may have the kcourage,
to look up and out and ukpon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country..
No less to Midas then the mendicant then.
Here, on the pulse of this new day
you may have the grace to look up and out
and into your sister's eyes, and into
your brother's face, your country,
And say simply,
with hope,
Good morning.
Dr Angelou read this at the fiftith anniversery of the United Nations. A Brave and Startling Truth We, this people on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through causal space.
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns,
To a destination, where all signs tell us,
It is possible and imperative that we discover,
A brave and startling truth.
And when we come to it.
To the day of peacemaking
When we realease our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms
When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And face sooted wth scorn are scrubbed cleand
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign lands
when the rapacious storming of churches
The screaming racket in the temples hav ceased
When the pennants are wavin gaily
When the banners of the world tramble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze
When we come to it.
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged my walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfoumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse
When we come to it.
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Not the Garden of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled in delicious color
By western sunsets
Not the Danube flowing in its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the rising sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world
When we come to it.
We, this people, on this minscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blad, the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cantankerous words
Which challenge our existance
Yet out of those same mouths
Can come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falter in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe
We, this people on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, lifeis sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
When we come to it.
We, this people, on this wayward floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climeate where every man and every woman
Can live freely with out sanctimonious piety
And without crippling fear
When we come to it.
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonders of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.
HUMAN FAMILY I note the obvious dfferences
in the human family.
Some of us are serious,
some thrive on comedy.
Some declare their lives are lived
as true profundity,
and others claim the really live
the real reality.
the varierty of our skin tones
can confuse, bemuse, delight
brown and pink and beige and purple
tan and blue and white.
I've sailed upon the seven seas
and stopped in every land,
I've seen the wonders of the wrold,
not yet one common man.
I know ten thousand women
called Jand and Mary Jane,
but I've not seen any two
who really were the same.
Mirror twins are different
although their features jibe,
and lovers think quite different thoughts
when lying side by side.
We love and lose in China
We weep in Enland's moors,
and laugh and moan in Guinea
and thrive on Spanish shores.
We seek success in Finland,
are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ, in major we're the same.
I note the obvious differences
between each sort and type,
but we are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends
than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends
than we are unalike.
Links to other sites on the Web
Get your own Free Home Page