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1 " A BRAVE AND STARTLING TRUTHWe, this people, on a small and lonely planetTraveling through casual spacePast aloof stars, across the way of indifferent sunsTo a destination where all signs tell usIt is possible and imperative that we learnA brave and startling truthAnd when we come to itTo the day of peacemakingWhen we release our fingersFrom fists of hostilityAnd allow the pure air to cool our palmsWhen we come to itWhen the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hateAnd faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed cleanWhen battlefields and coliseumNo longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughtersUp with the bruised and bloody grassTo lie in identical plots in foreign soilWhen the rapacious storming of the churchesThe screaming racket in the temples have ceasedWhen the pennants are waving gailyWhen the banners of the world trembleStoutly in the good, clean breezeWhen we come to itWhen we let the rifles fall from our shouldersAnd children dress their dolls in flags of truceWhen land mines of death have been removedAnd the aged can walk into evenings of peaceWhen religious ritual is not perfumedBy the incense of burning fleshAnd childhood dreams are not kicked awakeBy nightmares of abuseWhen we come to itThen we will confess that not the PyramidsWith their stones set in mysterious perfectionNor the Gardens of BabylonHanging as eternal beautyIn our collective memoryNot the Grand CanyonKindled into delicious colorBy Western sunsetsNor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into EuropeNot the sacred peak of Mount FujiStretching to the Rising SunNeither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shoresThese are not the only wonders of the worldWhen we come to itWe, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globeWho reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the daggerYet who petition in the dark for tokens of peaceWe, this people on this mote of matterIn whose mouths abide cankerous wordsWhich challenge our very existenceYet out of those same mouthsCome songs of such exquisite sweetnessThat the heart falters in its laborAnd the body is quieted into aweWe, this people, on this small and drifting planetWhose hands can strike with such abandonThat in a twinkling, life is sapped from the livingYet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tendernessThat the haughty neck is happy to bowAnd the proud back is glad to bendOut of such chaos, of such contradictionWe learn that we are neither devils nor divinesWhen we come to itWe, this people, on this wayward, floating bodyCreated on this earth, of this earthHave the power to fashion for this earthA climate where every man and every womanCan live freely without sanctimonious pietyWithout crippling fearWhen we come to itWe must confess that we are the possibleWe are the miraculous, the true wonder of this worldThat is when, and only whenWe come to it. "
― Maya Angelou , A Brave and Startling Truth