NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/soc/motss/58337

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-25 | 3.9 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Loren Meissner)
Newsgroups: soc.motss,pnw.motss
Subject: Inaugural Poem
Date: 25 Jan 1993 15:59:48 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
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NNTP-Posting-Host: carson.u.washington.edu


>
>    -- Following is the poem delivered by Maya Angelou at
>President Clinton's inauguration:
>    A Rock, a River, a Tree, hosts to species long-since departed, marked
>the mastadon, 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. It
>says: ``Come, rest here by my side, each of you a bordered country,
>delicate and strangely made, proud, yet thrusting perpetually under
>siege. 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 preacher. They all hear the speaking of the Tree. They hear the
>first and last of every Tree speak to humankind today:
>
>    ``Come to me, here beside the River. Plant yourself beside the River.
>Each of you, descendant of some passed-on traveler, 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 Crow, bought, sold, stolen,
>arriving on the 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
>the mastadon 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 and into your
>brother's face, your country, and say simply, very simply, with hope,
>Good morning!''