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 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: A Book of Poems, 1978.

5-31-2024

Today my wife and i celebrate thirty-seven years together, 

seventeen with a marriage certificate. 

 

i don’t know how many more years my legs will assist me 

walking upright on this Earthen terrain but i am overjoyed 

that one half of my life, she has walked along side me 
 
my longevity of three score and thirteen, is a gift and to  

have her by my side through our mundane vicissitudes 

despite her challenge of her medical infirmity, is a gift 

wrapped with Nature’s verdant bow 

 

Te Amo, Mi Amor~ 

spirit when the sunbeams kiss the sea

 ~the spirit that evinces when the sunbeams kiss the ocean waves as white caps roll over and over until they play with the grains of sand on the beach or clap against the promontory that separates the land from sea~

being alone

 

~when i choose to be alone, it’s my solitude time

where i can close mine eyes, breathe in the moment,

listen closely to the whispers of the wind as my

feathered friends sing the versus of Nature

i can hear the Maples' leaves rustling in the breeze

as i sit at its roots feeling its life come from under it

and this silence within me lets calm in, while feeling

my heartbeat, reminding me to the verve of Life

i gather these moments in a space of my ‘being’

so that when my breath is no longer present and

the ashes of ‘me’ have been spread deep under the

roots which will allow my spirit to live on and knowing

i was Loved~

one day, one night at rest

 ~and i lay my body down for a nocturnal stay, 

let this vision of the day be what shares my pillow  

as i close mine eyes to dream and rest, wishing the world  

around me will do the same, if not just for one night and day. 

 

maybe, just maybe then, we can see  

each other for who we are, common beings 

from the stars and the gifts of other life, who rely upon our care.  

and that we remember this but for one day, and one night at rest~