Adi+A.

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.
 * STILL I RISE**
 * Maya Angelou**

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 back yard.

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.

Children, I come back today To tell you a story of the long dark way That I had to climb, that I had to know In order that the race might live and grow. Look at my face -- dark as the night -- Yet shining like the sun with love's true light. I am the dark girl who crossed the red sea Carrying in my body the seed of the free. I am the woman who worked in the field Bringing the cotton I am the one who labored as a slave, Beaten and mistreated for the work that I gave -- Children sold away from me, I'm husband sold, too. No safety, no love, no respect was I due.
 * The Negro Mother**

Three hundred years in the deepest South: But God put a song and a prayer in my mouth. God put a dream like steel in my soul. Now, through my children, I'm reaching the goal.

Now, through my children, young and free, I realized the blessing deed to me. I couldn't read then. I couldn't write. I had nothing, back there in the night. Sometimes, the valley was filled with tears, But I kept trudging on through the lonely years. Sometimes, the road was hot with the sun, But I had to keep on till my work was done: Dares keep down the children of the Negro Mother.
 * Langston Hughes **


 * Hold Hard, These Ancient Minutes In the Cuckoo's Month. **

Hold Hard, These Ancient Minutes In the Cuckoo's Month Hold hard, these ancient minutes in the cuckoo's month, Under the lank, fourth folly on Glamorgan's hill, As the green blooms ride upward, to the drive of time; Time, in a folly's rider, like a county man Over the vault of ridings with his hound at heel, Drives forth my men, my children, from the hanging south.

Country, your sport is summer, and December's pools By crane and water-tower by the seedy trees Lie this fifth month unstaked, and the birds have flown; Holy hard, my country children in the world if tales, The greenwood dying as the deer fall in their tracks, The first and steepled season, to the summer's game.

And now the horns of England, in the sound of shape, Summon your snowy horsemen, and the four-stringed hill, Over the sea-gut loudening, sets a rock alive; Hurdles and guns and railings, as the boulders heave, Crack like a spring in vice, bone breaking April, Spill the lank folly's hunter and the hard-held hope.

Down fall four padding weathers on the scarlet lands, Stalking my children's faces with a tail of blood, Time, in a rider rising, from the harnessed valley; Hold hard, my country darlings, for a hawk descends, Golden Glamorgan straightens, to the falling birds.  Your sport is summers the spring runs angrily.


 * Dylan Thomas **