Maya Angelou. 1928-2014

[Ryrin]

When Great Trees Fall

 

When great trees fall,

rocks on distant hills shudder,

lions hunker down

in tall grasses,

and even elephants

lumber after safety.

 

When great trees fall

in forests,

small things recoil into silence,

their senses

eroded beyond fear.

 

When great souls die,

the air around us becomes

light, rare, sterile.

We breathe, briefly.

Our eyes, briefly,

see with

a hurtful clarity.

Our memory, suddenly sharpened,

examines,

gnaws on kind words

unsaid,

promised walks

never taken.

 

Great souls die and

our reality, bound to

them, takes leave of us.

Our souls,

dependent upon their

nurture,

now shrink, wizened.

Our minds, formed

and informed by their

radiance,

fall away.

We are not so much maddened

as reduced to the unutterable ignorance

of dark, cold

caves.

 

And when great souls die,

after a period peace blooms,

slowly and always

irregularly. Spaces fill

with a kind of

soothing electric vibration.

Our senses, restored, never

to be the same, whisper to us.

They existed. They existed.

We can be. Be and be

better. For they existed.

 

Maya Angelou

[Sunrise Lord]

I loved to hear her voice, so soft and tranquil, yet filled with power.

[Ryrin]

I could hear her voice as I read her words.

[Elgee]

Isn't that the poem she wrote as a eulogy for Nelson Mandela?

[Ryrin]

No. That poem is called "His Day is Done."

 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qizoRdxMhSw

[Elgee]

Aah ok. Still beautiful.

[Ryrin]

His day is done.

Is done.

The news came on the wings of a wind, reluctant to carry its burden.

Nelson Mandela’s day is done.

The news, expected and still unwelcome, reached us in the United States, and suddenly our world became somber.

Our skies were leadened.

 

His day is done.

We see you, South African people standing speechless at the slamming of that final door through which no traveler returns.

Our spirits reach out to you Bantu, Zulu, Xhosa, Boer.

We think of you and your son of Africa, your father, your one more wonder of the world.

 

We send our souls to you as you reflect upon your David armed with a mere stone, facing down the mighty Goliath.

 

Your man of strength, Gideon, emerging triumphant.

 

Although born into the brutal embrace of Apartheid, scarred by the savage atmosphere of racism, unjustly imprisoned in the bloody maws of South African dungeons.

 

Would the man survive? Could the man survive?

 

His answer strengthened men and women around the world.

 

In the Alamo, in San Antonio, Texas, on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, in Chicago’s Loop, in New Orleans Mardi Gras, in New York City’s Times Square, we watched as the hope of Africa sprang through the prison’s doors.

 

His stupendous heart intact, his gargantuan will hale and hearty.

 

He had not been crippled by brutes, nor was his passion for the rights of human beings diminished by twenty-seven years of imprisonment.

 

Even here in America, we felt the cool, refreshing breeze of freedom.

 

When Nelson Mandela took the seat of Presidency in his country where formerly he was not even allowed to vote we were enlarged by tears of pride, as we saw Nelson Mandela’s former prison guards invited, courteously, by him to watch from the front rows his inauguration.

 

We saw him accept the world’s award in Norway with the grace and gratitude of the Solon in Ancient Roman Courts, and the confidence of African Chiefs from ancient royal stools.

 

No sun outlasts its sunset, but it will rise again and bring the dawn.

 

Yes, Mandela’s day is done, yet we, his inheritors, will open the gates wider for reconciliation, and we will respond generously to the cries of Blacks and Whites, Asians, Hispanics, the poor who live piteously on the floor of our planet.

 

He has offered us understanding.

We will not withhold forgiveness even from those who do not ask.

Nelson Mandela’s day is done, we confess it in tearful voices, yet we lift our own to say thank you.

 

Thank you our Gideon, thank you our David, our great courageous man.

 

We will not forget you, we will not dishonor you, we will remember and be glad that you lived among us, that you taught us, and that you loved us all.