From: starkid@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Lance Sanders)
Subject: AMC:TAN: Maya Angelou's Inaugural Poem (complete)
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 18:49:46 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: EnviraForm


[ I received beaucoup email thanking me for posting excerpts from
  Maya Angelou's inaugural poem. It's so deep, and so beautiful,
  please enjoy the following full text.]


                       ON THE PULSE of MORNING

               Inaugural poem written and delivered at
           President Clinton's swearing-in by Maya Angelou


A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon,
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us,
clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.
The Rock cries out to us today,
    you may stand upon me,
But do not hide your face.

Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
Come, rest here by my side.

Each of you, a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under seige.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris
   upon my breast.
Yet today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,
Clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the Rock were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear
    across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.
The River sang and sings on.

There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African, the Native American,
    the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim,
    the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi,
    the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.

Today, the first and last of every Tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me,
    here beside the River.

Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveller, has been paid for.
You, who gave me my first name, you
Pawnee, Apache, Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation,
    who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet,
    left me to the employment of 
Other seekers---desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.

You, the Turk, the Arab, the Swede, the
German, the Eskimo, the Scot,
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba,
   the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am that Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.
I, the Rock, I, the River, I, the Tree
I am yours---your passages
    have been paid.
Lift up your faces,
     you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, but if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon
This day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.

Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space
    to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out and upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now
    than to the mastodon then.

Here, on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace
   to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.


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