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 pennants 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. Excerpted from Celebrations: Rituals of Peace and Prayer by Maya Angelou All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
