As one learns someone one “knew” for years has bid adieu and has gone to the “other world”, it unsettles one. You may try to be philosophical and convince yourself that “what comes, must go”, but we are weaklings for early recovery to sanity.
We had last week this shock of learning that Maya Angelou has left us forever, after 86 years, during which time she made our world better and charming with her poetic vibes that saw no national boundaries around the globe.
If the “caged bird” wrote as many as 30 books of poetry and essays, her verses were weapons she used with great skill to fight against social injustices. She tried to get her country (US) and the world out of the bitter past of racial oppression and division. Her poetic calls were always to remind her people to dream and go ahead without looking back, so that they are in a position “To give birth/ again to a dream”.
Her moment of glory came when President-elect Bill Clinton honoured her by inviting her to compose and read a poem at his first inaugural day in 1993. ‘On the Pulse of the Morning’ that she read was a message of hope and the dawn of a new era, calling for the burial of the bitter past and looking forward to a bright tomorrow.
Also a social activist, she never forgot to see others did not have to face what she had to in her younger days. And that earned her the epithet, ‘Global Renaissance of Woman’. Giving glimpses of her own past, she wrote, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you” (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings). She wrote no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, “life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.”
She believed people may forget what you said, they may forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.
That was she, the caged bird, now free to sing out of worldly bondage.
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