A Brave And Startling Truth Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEF GHIJK GLMNIOP QRJST GIUVWXYZU GA2B2C2JJB2D2E2 F2JB2D2G2H2 GI2D2WD2J2K2L2DD2M2 AB2HDN2O2B2D GJP2P2B2JQ2 GSH2R2GWe this people on a small and lonely planet | A |
Traveling through casual space | B |
Past aloof stars across the way of indifferent suns | C |
To a destination where all signs tell us | D |
It is possible and imperative that we learn | E |
A brave and startling truth | F |
- | |
And when we come to it | G |
To the day of peacemaking | H |
When we release our fingers | I |
From fists of hostility | J |
And allow the pure air to cool our palms | K |
- | |
When we come to it | G |
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate | L |
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean | M |
When battlefields and coliseum | N |
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters | I |
Up with the bruised and bloody grass | O |
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil | P |
- | |
When the rapacious storming of the churches | Q |
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased | R |
When the pennants are waving gaily | J |
When the banners of the world tremble | S |
Stoutly in the good clean breeze | T |
- | |
When we come to it | G |
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders | I |
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce | U |
When land mines of death have been removed | V |
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace | W |
When religious ritual is not perfumed | X |
By the incense of burning flesh | Y |
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake | Z |
By nightmares of abuse | U |
- | |
When we come to it | G |
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids | A2 |
With their stones set in mysterious perfection | B2 |
Nor the Gardens of Babylon | C2 |
Hanging as eternal beauty | J |
In our collective memory | J |
Not the Grand Canyon | B2 |
Kindled into delicious color | D2 |
By Western sunsets | E2 |
- | |
Nor the Danube flowing its blue soul into Europe | F2 |
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji | J |
Stretching to the Rising Sun | B2 |
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who without favor | D2 |
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores | G2 |
These are not the only wonders of the world | H2 |
- | |
When we come to it | G |
We this people on this minuscule and kithless globe | I2 |
Who reach daily for the bomb the blade and the dagger | D2 |
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace | W |
We this people on this mote of matter | D2 |
In whose mouths abide cankerous words | J2 |
Which challenge our very existence | K2 |
Yet out of those same mouths | L2 |
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness | D |
That the heart falters in its labor | D2 |
And the body is quieted into awe | M2 |
- | |
We this people on this small and drifting planet | A |
Whose hands can strike with such abandon | B2 |
That in a twinkling life is sapped from the living | H |
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing irresistible tenderness | D |
That the haughty neck is happy to bow | N2 |
And the proud back is glad to bend | O2 |
Out of such chaos of such contradiction | B2 |
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines | D |
- | |
When we come to it | G |
We this people on this wayward floating body | J |
Created on this earth of this earth | P2 |
Have the power to fashion for this earth | P2 |
A climate where every man and every woman | B2 |
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety | J |
Without crippling fear | Q2 |
- | |
When we come to it | G |
We must confess that we are the possible | S |
We are the miraculous the true wonder of this world | H2 |
That is when and only when | R2 |
We come to it | G |
Maya Angelou
(1)
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Emmanuel Geoffrey: Great poem
Emmanuel Geoffrey: Great poem
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