Maya Angelou reading her poem "A Brave and Startling Truth"

ladies and gentlemen Maya Angelou President Clinton all presidents all excellencies all friends I wrote this piece for every human being on earth we this people on a small and lonely planet traveling through casual space past aloof stars across the way of in different Suns to a destination where all signs tell us it is possible and imperative that we discover 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 and allow the pure air to cool our palms when we come to it when the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate and faces suited with scorn our scrubbed clean when battlefields and Coliseum no longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters up with the bruised and bloody grass to lie in identical plots in foreign lands when the rapacious storming of the churches the screaming racket in the temples have ceased when the pinions are waving gaily when the banners of the world tremble stoutly in the good clean breeze when we come to it when we let the rifles fall from our shoulders and children dress their dolls in flags of truce when landmines of death have been removed and the ages may walk into evenings of peace when the religious ritual is not perfumed by the incense of burning flesh and childhood dreams are not kicked awake by nightmares of abuse when we come to it then we will confess that not the pyramids with their stone set in mysterious perfection not the garden of Babylon hanging as eternal beauty in our collective memory not the Grand Canyon kindled into delicious color by western sunset nor the Danube flowing it's blue soul into Europe not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji stretching to the Rising Sun neither father Amazon or mother Mississippi who without favor nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores these are not the only wonders of the world when we come to it we this people on this miniscule and kissless globe who reach daily for the balm the blade 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 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 all 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 divine when we come to it we this people on this way would 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 and without crippling fear when we come to it we must confess that we are the possible we are the miraculous the true wonder of this world that is when and only when we come to it

Channel: United Nations

Views: 186,919

Rating: 4.9457397 out of 5

Keywords: UN, A Brave And Startling Truth, Maya Angelou (Author)

Id: UjEfq7wLm7M

Length: 5min 30sec (330 seconds)

Published: Wed May 28 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/Followlost]

For anyone interested, Cicely Tyson gave a moving eulogy at the funeral for Maya Angelou. It's just a small section of a larger ensemble who spoke, but it's very personal and touching. I think it summed up this great human perfectly. Video can be found online.

[u/l-kobsessedwHozier]

Cicely Tyson’s eulogy, for those interested: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jDcggTDeLaQ