you've been paid for--a reflection on maya angelou's lecture
Posted to Action Poetry
by kairo on 2003-04-30 08:33:00
"this is your life,
you've been paid for."
a cloak of her tunnel voice in my bones
she is the marrow of my skeleton
for these tiny moments
which stretch to hundreds.
each tender spot of my body
ached
when i walked here,
alone.
but she sang,
"just when you think it ain't gonna rain no more..."
and i was healed.
she is me
and me is you
and everybody
was there that night.
(how do you become the one
who says it all
and means it?)
"this is your life,
you've been paid for."
just as simple as offering lemonade
to quench the summer's misgivings.
don't you wonder,
how she knows?
don't you wonder,
how you'll explain your disdain
at who you are
and why you must now take your leave?
"just when you think it ain't gonna..."
silk pajamas,
she coats me in silk pajamas
and i sink into an abyss of knowledge
and hungry dinner of words.
"nothing human can be alien to me."
i am less than a shadow here
yet i listen with the intensity of a dying sinner
waiting to hear the secret
to eternal salvation.
"you've been...just when..."
and it's not nearly enough.
when i leave i have no direction
but i know the leaving
is the important part.
because this tunnel
is my life,
and the echoing voice is now my own
'cause child,
just when i think it ain't gonna rain no more,
i know,
i've been paid for.
