Summary
The poem begins with a description of a rock, a river, and a tree, which form a landscape in which mastodons, prehistoric elephant-like animals, once roamed. Only dried fossils remain to hint at these old inhabitants, who likely didn't know they were doomed to extinction. Today the rock invites humanity to stand on top of it and face its fate, rather than hide beneath it. For too long, human beings, who are so close to angels, have lived in ignorance, darkness, and violence. The rock urges them to stop hiding. Elsewhere, a river invites people to rest next to it.
Analysis
Angelou's poem is overwhelmingly focused on human history and human problems, but it begins with one of the most foreign-seeming scenarios imaginable—the lives and deaths of animals from the distant, prehistoric past. This seems somewhat paradoxical or counterproductive. Why set the work's first stanza at a time so unlike our own, with such wildly different problems? One answer is that, by invoking such a faraway part of the past, Angelou makes even broad divides within human history seem small. Compared to the mastodons, all humans, across every century and society, are relatively similar. Therefore, the poem's later claims—that all people and things are part of a united whole, and that the past remains ever-relevant—are easier to believe. All people are more closely related to each other than to a mastodon, and the human past is ever-relevant, especially when compared to the pre-human past. Angelou also evokes the mastodons' extinction, suggesting that they had no foresight or control over their own doom. In contrast, humanity has an informed choice to make about its own future, and the rest of the poem is devoted to the description of that choice between ignorant cowardice and brave enlightenment. Furthermore, the sheer drama and sweeping scale of the transition between prehistory and modernity adds a narrative energy and tension to the work.
These early stanzas are written in a remarkably unfettered free verse, with stanzas and lines varying dramatically in length. The first stanza is, for instance, nearly three times the length of the fourth and fifth stanzas. Angelou wrote this poem to be read out loud at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton in 1993. In a spoken work, these differences in line and stanza length are especially important. Longer stanzas help create a rhythm that can be either lulling or breathless, while shorter ones can convey strength and decisiveness. Together, this variety keeps an audience engaged. Surprising changes in delivery and rhythm prevent boredom and help audiences stay engaged—an important priority when readers don't have a text with which to follow along. Angelou's rhythmic fluctuations create a natural-seeming unpredictability on the page, but also offer aural anchors for listeners.
