A friend sent me this note about the Poet scheduled for Obama’s inauguration next month. (Learn more about Elizabeth Alexander.)
In her note she shared with me how Maya’s poem at the inauguration of Clinton’s first term would have been appropriate for this time around and how ahead of its time Maya’s poem was, in light of the historic nature and significance of this government elect…
Here is an except of The Rock Cries Out To Us Today!, by Maya Angelou. These words send chills through me when juxtapose to this pending occasion on Tuesday January 20th, 2009.
It is a New Day…
Good Morning World!
p.
I, the rock, I the river, I the tree
I am yours–your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage,
Need not be lived again.
Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.
Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts.
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.
The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me,
The rock, the river, the tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.
Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister’s eyes,
Into your brother’s face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Posted by Philippe Loves Cities in Barak Obama, Literature, Obama, Poets, Politic, Presidential Inauguration, US Presidential Campaign Tags: Barak Obama, Elizabeth Alexander, Literature, Maya Angelou, Poetry, Presidential Inauguration, The Rock Cries Out To Us Today!
Post Tenebras Lux! 