Monday's Poetry: "Still I Rise"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

Schools in America are preparing for their summer respite, the time when most classes cease and students and teachers take a break from the books for a couple of months to recoup their energies for the next year of classes.  A little down time is often a good thing, and with the continuing carnage being wrought on our country by school shootings, it is undoubtedly a psychological necessity that everyone involved in the American educational system be given time away from the center of the storm - time to take a few breaths and perhaps firm their resolve to not let this terror defeat them and destroy their hopes for the future.

In "Still I Rise" poet Maya Angelou was writing about the struggle to lift the burden or racism, but her words could also apply to the resolve that many are mustering to face down the terrors of school shootings and the inadequacies of politicians who struggle to do nothing of consequence to address the murderous violence. 

This year the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, rose up in protest after a classmate opened fire in their educational sanctuary.  Those kids, and their teachers, and their parents, lit a backfire of rage that is posing a real threat to America's gun lobby and the cadre of politicians that it has so blatantly owned for such a very long time.  May the protesters rise - and keep rising - and inspire others to rise with them until their voices become so thunderous that lawmakers will be forced to listen to the rage of the people - for a change - and place the needs of the people above those of gun manufacturers and arms dealers.


Still I Rise
by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod 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 backyard.

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.