One of my favorite poems… by Maya Angelou

I’m feeling moved to share one of my favorite poem by Maya Angelou. Although she mentions “my children” in the first line of Elegy, I’ve never felt her poem was to be read literally. This poem is about our creative offspring… whatever they may be. What have we nurtured in our lives? What are we willing to lie down and create fertile soil for, in order that whatever-it-is may continue to thrive and grow after we pass on?

Life is generative, it wants to continue being generative. Don’t waste your precious time and resources on anything less.

 

Elegy by Maya Angelou

I lay down in my grave

and watch my children

grow

Proud blooms

above the weeds of death.

Their petals wave

and still nobody

knows the soft black

dirt that is my winding

sheet. The worms, my friends,

yet tunnel holes in

bones and through those

apertures I see the rain.

The sunfelt warmth

now jabs

within my space and

brings me roots of my

children born.

Their seeds must fall

and press beneath

this earth,

and find me where I

wait. My only need to

fertilize their birth.

I lay down in my grave

and watch my children

grow.