*Maya Angelou Crackers Sometimes

"When they go, Ghana will be here. They are like mice on an elephant's back. They will pass...He is just part of Africa." --All God's Children Need  Traveling Shoes by Maya Angelou

The American writer and poet, Maya Angelou was among the last of a generation who were raised under the full weight of segregation. As a child in rural Stamps, Arkansas, Ms. Angelou was privileged to be the grand daughter of a land owning woman with an independent business in the village of Stamps. From her relatively secure position, she became educated and an inveterate reader of all types of literature.
Steeped in the ways of the old South, by necessity, Ms. Angelou's early life formed a resolute character that later supported her as she forged forward to New York's Harlem in the 1950's. A supporter of Martin Luther King and later of Malcolm X, she earned her "radical" stripes early.

Reading her work chronicled together as an autobiography is an eye-opening journey with a brave and determined woman. But she also shows herself to be like anyone anywhere; Ms. Angelou is not perfect.
She repeatedly retorts with prejudices of her own youth and despite her extensive literary style, does at times pejoratively refer to some as "crackers". For the casual reader of Ms. Angelou, this may come as a surprise. She, these days, is perhaps equally well known as one whose words accompany Hallmark greeting cards. Yet a more thorough reading of her works reveals a woman who is complex and honest enough to admit her thoughts and what she learns.  
All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes has many nuggets; one in particular is when as the focus of the tale, Maya emigrates to Ghana, intending to leave all the strife behind in America. In Ghana she is surprised and repeatedly confronted with the unexpected:

"Professor, why you let them disturb your heart?"
 I stuttered... 

"They were insulting my people. I just couldn't sit there." 

His smiled never changed. "And your people, they my people?"

"Yes but--I mean American Blacks."

"They been insulted before?"

"Yes--but..."

"And they still live?"

"Yes, but... they also insulted Ghana, your country."

"Oh Sister, as for that one, it is nothing..." 

He said, "This is not their place. In time they will pass. 

Ghana was here when they came. When they go, Ghana will be here. 

They are like mice on an elephant's back. They will pass."

She is then astonished that a simple Ghanaian man could be so secure in this knowledge that he could ignore another's rudeness. 
He concludes his thought with the observation, that even that man, he is also a part of Africa, a place made of many nations, peoples and cultures. Despite many false starts, Ms. Angelou comes to learn that she too has a place while not as a returned African, but as a living, breathing "Black American" in Africa.
This story tells her tale. Spiritually it is poignant in her struggle for understanding of herself and others; she makes sense of the precept of meeting one another on level ground, neither better no worse, telling her experience as she perceives it.

*Ms. Angelou observed her 86th birthday April 4, 2013

Kahlil Gibran, the Poet On Friendship

"In the sweetness of friendship, let there be laughter..." The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Written in his best known English language volume, The Prophet, poet, philosopher and artist Gibran writes about the subject of friendship most importantly. He, Gibran, the son of a Maronite Priest was born in Lebanon in the late 19th century. His family immigrated to the United States and lived in Boston when the poet was about 12 years old. He became a US citizen and lived the better part of his life there. He is often mistakenly thought of as a middle easterner and not Christian. But the contrary is entirely true. Even so, his strong family ties to Ottoman Syria, modern day Lebanon is clear throughout his works.

His poetic interests were most often spiritual themes; he often wrote about love. His long relationship to Mary Haskell is thought to have inspired much of his work. Writing in his tender, passionate way, Gibran reveals a depth and awareness over time that contributed to the making of his fame.

Kahlil Gibran on Friendship

And a youth said:

Speak to us of Friendship!
And he answered, saying
Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love
and reap with thanksgiving.

And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger,
and you seek him for peace.

When your friend speaks his mind you fear
not the "nay" in your own mind,
nor do you withhold the "ay".
And when he is silent your heart ceases
not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts,
all desires, all expectations are born and shared,
with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most
in him may be clearer in his absence,
as the mountain to the climber
is clearer from the plain.

And let there be no purpose in friendship
save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure
of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth:
and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be for your friend
that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need,
but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship
let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things
the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.