Human Family
Viewed 821 timesHuman Family
by Maya Angelou
I note the obvious differences
in the human family.
Some of us are serious,
some thrive on comedy.
Some declare their lives are lived
as true profundity,
and others claim they really live
the real reality.
The variety of our skin tones
can confuse, bemuse, delight,
brown and pink and beige and purple,
tan and blue and white.
I've sailed upon the seven seas
and stopped in every land,
I've seen the wonders of the world
not yet one common man.
I know ten thousand women
called Jane and Mary Jane,
but I've not seen any two
who really were the same.
Mirror twins are different
although their features jibe,
and lovers think quite different thoughts
while lying side by side.
We love and lose in China,
we weep on England's moors,
and laugh and moan in Guinea,
and thrive on Spanish shores.
We seek success in Finland,
are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ,
in major we're the same.
I note the obvious differences
between each sort and type,
but we are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
Miscellany
Other poems by Maya Angelou (read randomly)
We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
Give me your hand
Make room for me
to lead and follow
There is no warning rattle at the door
nor heavy feet to stomp the foyer boards.
Safe in the dark prison, I know that
That man over there say
a woman needs to be helped into carriages
and lifted over ditches
Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Curtains forcing their will
against the wind,
children sleep,
The eye follows, the land
Slips upward, creases down, forms
The gentle buttocks of a young
The highway is full of big cars
going nowhere fast
And folks is smoking anything that'll burn
I note the obvious differences
in the human family.
Some of us are serious,
The free bird leaps
on the back of the win
and floats downstream
There are some nights when
sleep plays coy,
aloof and disdainful.
We were entwined in red rings
Of blood and loneliness before
The first snows fell
Shadows on the wall
Noises down the hall
Life doesn’t frighten me at all
When I was young, I used to
Watch behind the curtains
As men walked up and down the street. Wino men, old
The night has been long,
The wound has been deep,
The pit has been dark,
