They Went Home

They went home and told their wives,
that never once in all their lives,
had they known a girl like me,
But... They went home.

They said my house was licking clean,
no word I spoke was ever mean,
I had an air of mystery,
But... They went home.

My praises were on all men's lips,
they liked my smile, my wit, my hips,
they'd spend one night, or two or three.
But...           

I don't know if simply because I'm getting older and therefore more acquainted with death but it seems like we're losing a lot of people. Not just famous people, friends and family too. Last year the world lost two great Africans, Chinua Achebe and Nelson Mandela. They weren't young but it didn't make it any less sad. This week we said goodbye to Maya Angelou, poet, author, social activist humanitarian and phenomenal woman.


Isn't it funny the things you find out about someone after they pass? Did you know Maya had lived in Ghana and Egypt or that she had worked with Malcolm X? I imagine she was special in so many ways most of us who didn't know personally will never know.

I first "met" Miss Maya in my high  school literature class. My teacher decided that we ought to dedicate an entire year to studying Shakespeare's Macbeth, possibly because nobody understood a word of it initially. Because of this we had to rush through our African literature and poetry syllabus. One of the few poems we did get to study was Maya's poem "They Went Home". It changed how I thought of poetry and what it meant to be a woman. She inspired me to write poetry too. Her style was simple and fresh, much needed after a year of "thee's", "thou's" and "doth's.  She made profound statements in the simplest of ways. My favorite thing about her was her deep voice, she made everything sound old and wise.  I wish I could have met her as I'm sure many of you do too but at least we have a bit of her spirit, left forever in her work.