Touched by an Angel
Maya Angelou
We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles in delight
Live coiled in shells of loneliness
Until love leaves it's high holy temple
and comes into our sight
To liberate us into life.
Love arrives
and in it's train come ecstasies
Old memories of pleasure
and ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are so bold
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.
We are weaned form our timidity
in the flush of loves light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and all we'll ever be
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.
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This is a poem that I've had committed to memory for about a year now. Just locked, loaded and waiting to blast away at the walls around the heart of some young woman.
I think it is one of the most beautiful poems I've ever read. And yet somehow I feel it's not that popular? I guess it's not like I'm in a writing or poetry club like the Dead Poet Society, or something where works of such magnitude are recited on the daily. Nope. A lot of folks in my generation would rather listen to Lil Tunechi quack about how he and all his niggas are rich as F#*@.
What ever floats your boat I guess?
Anyway, the point is that I've been waiting for the "right moment" to drop this poetic bomb on someone but the "right moment" never comes! Whats the deal "right moment"?? Why don't you ever just burst thought the clouds and come down from your high holy temple, and into my sight, to liberate me into life!?
I know what the problem is. The right moment just doesn't come. I have to make it!
My main target for this poem, is someone who, I believe, does not grasp the concept in the last stanza. Either that or they grasp it all too well.
This person has loved another with all their heart, so deeply that they were sure the rest of this life would be spent together. But things didn't work out. And like the poem said, "Love cost all we are" and thats exactly what they gave. When you give someone all you have, and they throw it away, just imagine the pain that must cause. I've seen the pain it has caused. And through seeing it, i've been able to feel just an infinitesimal amount of it. To empathize with it.
Now, by way of this failed love, their heart is left ravaged by the ancient histories of pain. Like a city on the coast after a tsunami of love. It completely covers and fills every part of you, inside and out, and then withdrawals only to reveal the devastation left behind. The utter destruction. The complete heartbreak.
So how could they be willing to go through this again? Why would any sane person be willing to love like this again? Isn't it in our human nature to learn from our mistakes and not make them again? The heart will now say, "BUILD UP THE WALLS & LEVI'S!!! LET'S NOT LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN!! NO SIR!!"
But the words of Angelou ring true:
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.
Let go of your pain. Release the burden of keeping these heavy walls around your heart. Strike away the chains of fear from your soul.
Love again!!
Be free!!!!
Be free!!!!
