Famous Poem
in Famous Death Poems
Maya Angelou (1928-2014) uses symbolism and strong imagery in this poem to show a person’s response to loss. It doesn’t matter how strong or tough you are; when an influential person in your life passes away, you feel the effects. Although this poem does show that we experience regrets with things left unsaid, our lives are made better by that person's influence. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on Maya Angelou’s birthday (April 4) in 1968, and his death deeply affected her. In fact, she stopped celebrating her own birthday for many years.
When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.
When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.
Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.
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I have also lost a son, a baby boy. Back then I was very grieved by that experience. I was told by people that loved me and helped support me to quickly heal and get over the way I felt, even...
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