We always seem to start the New Year with new goals and good intentions. However, we very quickly realize that it's just not that easy. Inevitably, we face setbacks and difficulties. This short video of Maya Angelou reading one her poems, is truly inspirational. Enjoy...
Still I Rise
By Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod 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 backyard.
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, “Still I Rise” from And Still I Rise. Copyright © 1978 by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, Inc.
Source: The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (1994)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
This is the first time I have seen this poem. The poem is powerful!
Yes. It always makes me think of a certain 99-year-old lady. What an inspiration: to have suffered so much and yet to have found the courage to carry on!
Post a Comment