I never really picked a favorite out of Maya’s works. I
never read one of her books cover to cover. I guess I never really needed to.
She was always there. It seems that every time I turned a corner, a page,
scrolled down a newsfeed or heard an empowering lecture, she was in there. Her
words all-encompassing stretched out to all corners of the Earth it seems, and
now that she has stretched free, those words continue the work she came here to
do.
No, I couldn’t with confidence say what my favorite piece
is. Sometimes we don’t know to hold onto these things or seek them out because
the person who shared them was simply a part of the fabric of the world around
us just as the sky, the wind, the rain. Do you have a favorite rainstorm? Is
there a particular leaf on your favorite tree that captivates you? Maybe there
is but for me, the tree is there and I can cool myself in its shade. Maya is
there. Her words are there. She is the molecules floating around us and her
words are part of the language we speak.
“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
