Celebrations: Rituals of Peace and Prayer Read online

  Copyright © 2006 by Maya Angelou

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  RANDOM House and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  THE FOLLOWING POEMS HAVE BEEN PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED:

  “On the Pulse of Morning,” “A Brave and Startling Truth,”

  “When Great Trees Fall,” “Amazing Peace,” and “Mother.”

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Angelou, Maya.

  Celebrations: rituals of peace and prayer / Maya Angelou.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-77792-8

  I. Title

  PS3551.N464C45 2006

  811′.54—dc22 2006048645

  www.atrandom.com

  v3.1

  C O N T E N T S

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  On the Pulse of Morning

  A Brave and Startling Truth

  Continue

  Sons and Daughters

  When Great Trees Fall

  A Black Woman Speaks to Black Manhood

  Amazing Peace

  Mother: A Cradle to Hold Me

  In and Out of Time

  Ben Lear’s Bar Mitzvah

  Vigil

  Prayer

  Dedication

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  ON THE PULSE

  OF MORNING

  A Rock, a River, a Tree,

  Hosts to species long since departed,

  Marked the mastodon.

  The dinosaur, who left dry tokens

  Of their sojourn here

  On our planet floor.

  Any broad alarm of their hastening doom

  Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

  But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,

  Come, you may stand upon my back

  And face your distant destiny,

  But seek no haven in my shadow.

  I will give you no hiding place down here.

  You, created only a little lower than

  The angels, have crouched too long in

  The bruising darkness,

  Have lain too long

  Face down in ignorance,

  Your mouths spilling words

  Armed for slaughter.

  The Rock cries out today, you may stand on me,

  But do not hide your face.

  Across the wall of the world,

  A River sings a beautiful song,

  Come rest here by my side.

  Each of you a bordered country,

  Delicate and strangely made, proud,

  Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.

  Your armed struggles for profit

  Have left collars of waste upon

  My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.

  Yet, today I call you to my riverside,

  If you will study war no more. Come,

  Clad in peace, and I will sing the songs

  The Creator gave to me when I and the

  Tree and the stone were one.

  Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your

  Brow and when you yet knew you still

  Knew nothing.

  The River sings and sings on.

  There is a true yearning to respond to

  The singing River and the wise Rock.

  So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew,

  The African and Native American, the Sioux,

  The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek,

  The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,

  The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,

  The Privileged, the Homeless, the Teacher.

  They hear. They all hear

  The speaking of the Tree.

  Today, the first and last of every Tree

  Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the River.

  Plant yourself beside me, here beside the River.

  Each of you, descendant of some

  Passed-on traveler, has been paid for.

  You who gave me my first name, you

  Pawnee, Apache, and Seneca, you

  Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then,

  Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of

  Other seekers—desperate for gain,

  Starving for gold.

  You the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Italian, the Scot,

  You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought,

  Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare,

  Praying for a dream.

  Here, root yourselves beside me.

  I am the Tree planted by the River,

  Which will not be moved.

  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,

  Good morning.

  A BRAVE AND

  STARTLING TRUTH

  Dedicated to the hope for peace, which lies,

  sometimes hidden, in every heart.

  We, this people, on a small and lonely planet

  Traveling through casual space

  Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns

  To a destination where all signs tell us

  It is possible and imperative that we learn

  A brave and startling truth.

  And when we come to it

  To the day of peacemaking

  When we release our fingers

  From fists of hostility

  When we come to it

  When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate

  And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean

  When battlefields and coliseum

  No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters

  Up with the bruised and bloody grass

  To lay them in identical plots in foreign soil

  When the rapacious storming of the churches

  The screaming racket in the temples have ceased

  When the pennan
ts are waving gaily

  When the banners of the world tremble

  Stoutly in a good, clean breeze

  When we come to it

  When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders

  And our children can dress their dolls in flags of truce

  When land mines of death have been removed

  And the aged can walk into evenings of peace

  When religious ritual is not perfumed

  By the incense of burning flesh

  And childhood dreams are not kicked awake

  By nightmares of sexual abuse

  When we come to it

  Then we will confess that not the Pyramids

  With their stones set in mysterious perfection

  Nor the Gardens of Babylon

  Hanging as eternal beauty

  In our collective memory

  Not the Grand Canyon

  Kindled into delicious color

  By Western sunsets

  Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe

  Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji

  Stretching to the Rising Sun

  Neither Father Amazon nor Mother

  Mississippi

  who, without favor,

  Nurtures all creatures in their depths and on their shores

  These are not the only wonders of the world

  When we come to it

  We, this people, on this minuscule globe

  Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade, and the dagger

  Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace

  We, this people, on this mote of matter

  In whose mouths abide cankerous words

  Which challenge our very existence

  Yet out of those same mouths

  Can come songs of such exquisite sweetness

  That the heart falters in its labor

  And the body is quieted into awe

  We, this people, on this small and drifting planet

  Whose hands can strike with such abandon

  That, in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living

  Yet those same hands can touch with such healing,

  irresistible tenderness,

  That the haughty neck is happy to bow

  And the proud back is glad to bend

  Out of such chaos, of such contradiction

  We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

  When we come to it

  We, this people, on this wayward, floating body

  Created on this earth, of this earth

  Have the power to fashion for this earth

  A climate where every man and every woman

  Can live freely without sanctimonious piety

  Without crippling fear

  When we come to it

  We must confess that we are the possible

  We are the miraculous, we are the true wonder of this world

  That is when, and only when,

  We come to it.

  CONTINUE

  ON THE OCCASION OF OPRAH WINFREY’S

  FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY

  Dear Oprah,

  On the day of your birth

  The Creator filled countless storehouses and stockings

  With rich ointments

  Luscious tapestries

  And antique coins of incredible value

  Jewels worthy of a queen’s dowry

  They were set aside for your use

  Alone

  Armed with faith and hope

  And without knowing of the wealth which awaited

  You broke through dense walls

  Of poverty

  And loosed the chains of ignorance which threatened to cripple you so that you could walk

  A free woman

  Into a world which needed you

  My wish for you

  Is that you continue

  Continue

  To be who and how you are

  To astonish a mean world

  With your acts of kindness

  Continue

  To allow humor to lighten the burden

  Of your tender heart

  Continue

  In a society dark with cruelty

  To let the people hear the grandeur

  Of God in the peals of your laughter

  Continue

  To let your eloquence

  Elevate the people to heights

  They had only imagined

  Continue

  To remind the people that

  Each is as good as the other

  And that no one is beneath

  Nor above you

  Continue

  To remember your own young years

  And look with favor upon the lost

  And the least and the lonely

  Continue

  To put the mantel of your protection

  Around the bodies of

  The young and defenseless

  Continue

  To take the hand of the despised

  And diseased and walk proudly with them

  In the high street

  Some might see you and

  Be encouraged to do likewise

  Continue

  To plant a public kiss of concern

  On the cheek of the sick

  And the aged and infirm

  And count that as a

  Natural action to be expected

  Continue

  To let gratitude be the pillow

  Upon which you kneel to

  Say your nightly prayer

  And let faith be the bridge

  You build to overcome evil

  And welcome good

  Continue

  To ignore no vision

  Which comes to enlarge your range

  And increase your spirit

  Continue

  To dare to love deeply

  And risk everything

  For the good thing

  Continue

  To float

  Happily in the sea of infinite substance

  Which set aside riches for you

  Before you had a name

  Continue

  And by doing so

  You and your work

  Will be able to continue

  Eternally

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

  SONS AND

  DAUGHTERS

  WRITTEN FOR THE

  CHILDREN’S DEFENSE FUND

  If my luck is bad

  And his aim is straight

  I will leave my life

  On the killing field

  You can see me die

  On the nightly news

  As you settle down

  To your evening meal.

  But you’ll turn your back

  As you often do

  Yet I am your sons

  And your daughters too.

  In the city streets

  Where the neon lights

  Turn my skin from black

  To electric blue

  My hope soaks red

  On the gray pavement

  And my dreams die hard

  For my life is through.

  But you’ll turn your back

  As you often do

  Yet I am your sons

  And your daughters too.

  In the little towns

  Of this mighty land

  Where you close your eyes

  To my crying need

  I strike out wild

  And my brother falls

  Turn on your news

  You can watch us bleed.

  In morgues I’m known

  By a numbered tag

  In clinics and jails

  And junkyards too

  You deny my kin

  Though I bear your name

  For I am a part

  Of mankind too.

  But you’ll turn your back

  As you often do

  Yet I am your sons

  And your daughters too.

  Turn your face to me

 
; Please

  Let your eyes seek my eyes

  Lay your hand upon my arm

  Touch me. I am real as flesh

  And solid as bone.

  I am no metaphor

  I am no symbol

  I am not a nightmare

  To vanish with the dawn

  I am lasting as hunger

  And certain as midnight.

  I claim that no council nor committee

  Can contain me

  Nor fashion me to its whim.

  You, come here, hunch with me in this dingy doorway,

  Face with me the twisted mouth threat

  Of one more desperate

  And better armed than I.

  Join me again at today’s dime store counter

  Where the word to me

  Is still no.

  Let us go, your shoulder,

  Against my shoulder,

  To the new picket line

  Where my color is still a signal

  For brutes to spew their bile

  Like spit in my eye.

  You, only you, who have made me

  Who share this tender taunting history with me

  My fathers and mothers

  Only you can save me

  Only you can order the tides,

  That rush my heart, to cease

  Stop expanding my veins

  Into red riverlets.

  Come, you my relative

  Walk the forest floor with me

  Where rampaging animals lurk,

  Lusting for my future

  Only if your side is by my side

  Only if your side is by my side

  Will I survive.

  But you’ll probably turn your back

  As you often do

  Yet I am your sons

  And your daughters too.

  WHEN GREAT

  TREES FALL

  Dedicated to Bernice Johnson Reagon

  of Sweet Honey in the Rock

  When great trees fall,

  rocks on distant hills shudder,

  lions hunker down