Maya Angelou's life
was her own
but she gave
to us pieces
describing
and standing by
to continue to describe
through ink on paper
or waves in the air.
So what does it matter
that she spoke and wrote
and taught college
and marched
and researched and sang
and reported and acted
and inaugurated
in her one life?
What does it matter
one more Renaissance woman
growing up black and poor
in the South
and becoming a figurehead
of what one person
can do and overcome
and walk through?
What does it matter
that you didn't always
think of her
but she was just there
doing what a literary
fixture does
being present
and that now any tribute
to her
comes out feeling
like a cliche
not nearly as well written
as the one life was lived?
This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.
