Monday, January 14, 2013

Still I Rise (Maya Angelou)

Still I Rise


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 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.


7 comments:

operaerobic said...

Still I rise, in my sleep... ;)

Well, you asked me what happened to 2013, mostly that, and it looks like you shared some poetry with me (thanks, I feel so uplifted by this).

SB said...

And to make light of the dark, our thoughts may bubble up to naturalism and syncretism, where my candle becomes a pearl of wisdom. :)

Anonymous said...

Also, I was in fact willing to stuff the pen (that's why I said shh, to begin with). Did you have something else in mind? I'll just hold that thought, then (whether ink be the link in a chained brain), J(ain).

operaerobic said...

I'm happy to treat my fellow earthlings as equals (however far beyond feminism that sounds coming from a man), and be abreast of one or more of them in a dream if nowhere else (maybe we'll have something more to say about this there... similar things have happened, one lovely woman, who I told of being friendly with in my sleep, didn't actually want to get along with me, just to coax me into a sucker punch, so I guess she wasn't there, or we would have been on the same page from the other side of our story).

SB said...

Maybe that was poetic justice from her point of view, and maybe not a matter I care to pursue, if there's something better to do (not talking to anyone for a while would be new, and dreams will continue).

Anonymous said...

As for my poetic justice, I think there's more to this story than meets the eye, in so far as it being a meeting of the mimes, since I speak foreign languages in my sleep (and don't even comprehend one to date). In this language, mine was all food for thought, as I like the thought of baking quickbread, when time allows (still it rises, slightly), maybe that'll bring me up to speed, as I shift gears swiftly, for effect, in the midst of a snail race. :)

operaerobic said...

Still I fall, asleep (I guess falling is always a foreign affair, like tripping on poetry here, bonsoir mesdames).