A brave and startling truth, by Maya Angelou
Dedicated to the hope for peace, which lies, sometimes hidden, in every heart.
We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual 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 learn
A brave and startling truth.
And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show
of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed
clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular
sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lay them in identical plots in foreign soil
When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have
ceased
When the pennants are waiving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in a good, clean breeze
When we come to it.
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And our children can dress their dolls in flags
of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of sexual abuse
When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious colour
Be Western sunsets
Nor the Danube, flowing 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 favour,
Nurtures all creatures in their depths and on
their shores
These are not the only wonders of the world
When we come to it
Maya Angelou
......
and some courageous words full of honesty and so fragile:
The Green Bough- blog
"....It’s a strange sensation reading old writing- like visiting a friend you haven’t seen for years but would still recognize anywhere.
I've decided to share three of the poems here: “Twyla” (based on a conversation I had with Seneca elder Twyla Nitsch of the Wolf Clan), “Night Tears,” and “My Breasts.” These poems are about living intimately with ourselves- with our longing, our grief and the body-self that is inseparable from mind, heart and soul.
When I read them now I hear, beneath the stories and the emotions, a great tenderness for the sometimes challenging, often confusing, but nevertheless sweetness of our human experience.
(wow- brave lady)
Night Tears
There is a crying
that happens at night
that does not come
while the light is with us.
There are things that cannot
be evaded
once the sun goes down.
Small nocturnal creatures
with sharp white teeth
silently gnaw at the edges of
belly and heart
when the darkness descends
and the void inside
grows larger.
It can split you open.
And bone
in the centre of your chest
aches
like the cracked wishing bone
from the turkey breast.
And if we are strong enough to be weak enough
we are given a wound
that never heals.
It is the gift
that keeps the heart open.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer © 1995
Dedicated to the hope for peace, which lies, sometimes hidden, in every heart.
We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual 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 learn
A brave and startling truth.
And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show
of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed
clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular
sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lay them in identical plots in foreign soil
When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have
ceased
When the pennants are waiving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in a good, clean breeze
When we come to it.
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And our children can dress their dolls in flags
of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of sexual abuse
When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious colour
Be Western sunsets
Nor the Danube, flowing 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 favour,
Nurtures all creatures in their depths and on
their shores
These are not the only wonders of the world
When we come to it
Maya Angelou
......
and some courageous words full of honesty and so fragile:
The Green Bough- blog
"....It’s a strange sensation reading old writing- like visiting a friend you haven’t seen for years but would still recognize anywhere.
I've decided to share three of the poems here: “Twyla” (based on a conversation I had with Seneca elder Twyla Nitsch of the Wolf Clan), “Night Tears,” and “My Breasts.” These poems are about living intimately with ourselves- with our longing, our grief and the body-self that is inseparable from mind, heart and soul.
When I read them now I hear, beneath the stories and the emotions, a great tenderness for the sometimes challenging, often confusing, but nevertheless sweetness of our human experience.
(wow- brave lady)
Night Tears
There is a crying
that happens at night
that does not come
while the light is with us.
There are things that cannot
be evaded
once the sun goes down.
Small nocturnal creatures
with sharp white teeth
silently gnaw at the edges of
belly and heart
when the darkness descends
and the void inside
grows larger.
It can split you open.
And bone
in the centre of your chest
aches
like the cracked wishing bone
from the turkey breast.
And if we are strong enough to be weak enough
we are given a wound
that never heals.
It is the gift
that keeps the heart open.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer © 1995
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