Maya Angelou: 1928 - 2014

STILL I RISE

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

ROWING WITH ANNE SEXTON

How right you are, Anne. But you were always
right - even when your worst critics tried to
silence your awful truth.

So I've flipped the pages of my dusty
calendar, and have seen May for the first
time this year:

An enormous field of lazy lavender flowers. How
I long to sleep in such a rich and natural bed!
Instead, I bought a new 100 watt bulb,

and lit up my dark cave in the sky. Now I am wide
awake. I see too much dust and death, and a
rare living sunflower or two. I place my frozen

TV dinner in the microwave, and read your holy
words while I wait for that faint little bell to tell
me my toxic meal is done.

I now have light, Anne. But there is no life
saving soup. There's no home or heart when
depression has robbed its victim of

everything that matters most: Family, friends, joy,
those silly little bruised flowers on the bank
calendar page. So I read your poems, and wait for the

rowing to come. I know it might never happen: That awful
rowing toward God. But you came so very close, Anne.
That's the tragedy for people like us:

We came so fucking close.

Poem © 2014 by Dylan Mitchell