#116 / We Are The Possible

Maya Angelou

Today, at 1:30 p.m. pacific time, Maria Popova will be hosting an online, virtual presentation of "The Universe in Verse." This event was originally scheduled to be held at the UCSC Quarry Ampitheatre - in other words, in the real world - but such gatherings and celebrations have all been suspended. It may be possible, by clicking that link above, to access a Livestream version, and if you have the time, I'd recommend that you give it a try. "The Universe in Verse" is described as a "charitable celebration of science and nature through poetry," and it has become an annual event. 

The second annual Universe in Verse opened with the poem “A Brave and Startling Truth” by Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928–May 28, 2014). Angelou is pictured above. I have reproduced the poem below. The poem flew to space on the Orion spacecraft and Angelou dedicated the poem to “the hope for peace, which lies, sometimes hidden, in every heart.” If you would like to hear a reading of the poem, by Janna Levin, click right here. 

Maria Popova, who organizes the annual "The Universe in Verse" events, says she "chose this poem to set the tone for the show in part because it is absolutely stunning and acutely relevant to our cultural moment, and in part because the first time I read it, it sparked in me a sudden insight into the often invisible ways in which science and poetry influence and inspire one another — into how the golden threads of thought and feeling stretch and cross-hatch across disciplines to weave what we call culture." 

For me, the last verse is the best, saying what I know is true: 

We are the possible 

We are the miraculous, 

The true wonder of this world

oooOOOooo

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.

Image Credit:

https://time.com/123036/maya-angelou-a-hymn-to-human-endurance/