Poetry of Maya Angelou

This poem shares the title of the first volume of Maya Angelou's autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings that the book club read in February 2008.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks

of another breeze
and the trade winds soft

through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting

on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky

his own.

But a caged bird stands

on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts

on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped

and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat

to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

Another poem that our members enjoyed:

When Great Trees Fall

When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down in tall grasses,
and even elephants lumber after safety.

When great trees fall in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes light, rare, sterile.
We breathe briefly.
Our eyes, briefly, see with a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened, examines,
gnaws on kind words unsaid,
promised walks never taken.

Great souls die and our reality, bound to them, takes leave of us.
Our souls, dependent upon their nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed and informed by their radiance, fall away.
We are not so much maddened as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of dark, cold caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly.
Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us,
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be better.
For they existed.

More poems by Maya Angelou can be found in The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou