maya angelou is dead

I remember reading her in college, the first 'feminist' poem that I remember. I remember stumbling over 'dance like I've got diamonds/at the meeting of my thighs', and being laughingly asked by a friend to read it aloud, doing so with a hitch and a grin, and feeling somehow grown up, aware of that meeting place in a different way than before. She was brave to write the poem, she was brilliant and poetic and a wonderful writer, and I got to touch a little bit of that bravery.

A second hand copy of 'I know why the caged bird sings' sits in my shelf, perennially on my to-read list, victim to my impulse to not read what I have pegged as gloomdoom novels. Someday.

The free bird thinks of another breeze

and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees

and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn

and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams

his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream

his wings are clipped and his feet are tied

so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings

with a fearful trill

of things unknown

but longed for still

and his tune is heard

on the distant hill

for the caged bird

sings of freedom.