I love PBS. They always have such great programs– I have learned so much and garnered so much entertainment from that channel. It makes me so angry that Dump and his cronies want to defund it.
Today I happened upon a program about poet and writer Paul Laurence Dunbar. He was a prolific African American writer in the late 1800s and early 1900s. I have never heard of him that I can remember. Maya Angelou found inspiration from him. Here is his poem “Sympathy”:
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!
I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!
~
Below is Maya Angelou reciting it. Makes me cry.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3wod3z_paul-laurence-dunbar-sympathy-maya-angelou_school
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