Coming to a brave and startling truth?

A poem by Maya Angelou.
Angelou composed the poem for the 50th anniversary of the United Nations in 1995.


A BRAVE AND STARTLING TRUTH

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
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 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 lie 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 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 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 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,
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 minuscule and kithless 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
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, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

Mei

Dan is het weer mei.
Waarvan in dit land wordt gezegd: dan leggen alle vogels een ei.
De maand van het nieuwe leven dus.
Maar wederom in dit land ook de maand van het herdenken; eerst de doden die daarvoor vielen en dan de vrijheid die we daardoor genieten.
Vandaag, 1 mei wordt er overigens ook het nodige herdacht en gevierd. In de rest van de wereld dan maar niet in dit land, wij zijn meer van, zeg maar, het oranjegevoel.
Hoewel de 1 mei-viering buiten ons land nog volop in de belangstelling lijkt te staan heeft dat volgens Canadese medeblogger WD Fyfe nog maar bar weinig om het lijf, en wel omdat diegenen die er nog iets aan doen steeds meer op figuranten in een bekende roman van George Orwell beginnen te lijken.

Dat is toch jammer, vind ik. Want zou het niet mooi zijn wanneer allerlei mensen van over de hele wereld 1 dag zouden hebben (tussen al die speciale dagen, weken en maanden die telkens maar voor van alles en nog wat in het leven roepen) om die idealen voor een betere wereld waar we bijna allemaal achter kunnen staan weer eens in gedachte te roepen en te overdenken. 1 mei zou daar toch een mooie dag voor zijn. Maar ja, welke idealen of waarden, met het goede leven op het oog, komen daar vandaag de dag nog voor in aanmerking?