One of my first posts on this blog, a couple years ago , was one of Maya Angelou's
poems and I am slowly starting to realize that I am entering an age where my childhood and
teenage heroes are dying. This time it's different, because I have to say RIP to a woman who has
been not a hero but a muse and inspiration for me while I was (or still am?) trying to become
the woman I am, while I was trying to fill out all the things that I am, while I was trying to find a
balance between the inside and the outside, between the obvious and the hidden. So many
times her words and her perspective made me rearrange mine, made me
strive to be better, stronger, brighter. As a woman. As a person.
It is oddly fascinating how a couple words, written by the
hand of a total stranger can make your whole universe bloom. How the struggle of others can help you with your
own, how somedoy elses context can become yours regardeless of where or when you were born.
Thank you Maya Angelou, without your voice, I probably never would have found mine.
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Maya Angelou
