Words Stretching Free

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