Sucker Punches and Poems

Sometimes life is rolling along all smoothly and you're working hard, but feeling all zesty and blessed, when all of a sudden, BAM! ~ Out of the blue, you get a sucker punch right to the gut. 

You stagger around a little, and feel like vomiting, but recover enough to get up, and just when you start walking and let some semblance of a smile cross your face, WHAMO! ~ You're blindsided by a kick upside your head.

It's exhausting, and it hurts like heck, and it really makes going along with your normal plans difficult, but I bet you already know that because you've probably had some shizzle smack you when you weren't really expecting it either.

So, while my plan was to write something about poems today, because I read somewhere that April is National Poetry Month and I've been a homeschooling mom for so long that I get excited about such things, the reality is that I'm just not feeling it.  

I'm feeling bruised and beaten and like I can't muster the effort to form words into any sort of rhythm. Even if I did, it would probably be depressing, possibly bitter and maybe even R rated for language because I am too emotionally exhausted to think clearly enough to come up with adjectives.

Instead, I'm sharing one of my all time favorite poems in the whole wide world. I read it aloud to my kids and I'm reading it over & over to myself, because these are the words I need to hear right now. The more I hear them, the more I know it's true. I'll Rise...

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Still I Rise  by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history 
With your bitter, twisted lies, 
You may trod me in the very dirt 
But still, like dust, I'll rise. 

Does my sassiness upset you? 
Why are you beset with gloom? 
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells 
Pumping in my living room. 

Just like moons and like suns, 
With the certainty of tides, 
Just like hopes springing high, 
Still I'll rise. 

Did you want to see me broken? 
Bowed head and lowered eyes? 
Shoulders falling down like teardrops, 
Weakened by my soulful cries? 

Does my haughtiness offend you? 
Don't you take it awful hard 
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines 
Diggin' in my own backyard. 

You may shoot me with your words, 
You may cut me with your eyes, 
You may kill me with your hatefulness, 
But still, like air, I'll rise. 

Does my sexiness upset you? 
Does it come as a surprise 
That I dance like I've got diamonds 
At the meeting of my thighs? 

Out of the huts of history's shame I rise 
Up from a past that's rooted in pain I rise 
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, 
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. 

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear 
I rise 
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise 
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, 
I am the dream and the hope of the slave. 

I rise 
I rise 
I rise.