Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no hiding place down here.
Here, Angelou distinguishes between two types of support or friendship—one in which an individual helps their companion avoid facing the truth and helps them remain ignorant, and another in which the individual helps their companion to see and understand the truth. Angelou suggests that the natural world is inherently truthful, and that living harmoniously with nature makes it impossible to remain ignorant. She also suggests that, while ignorance may feel easier, it is ultimately a kind of cowardice, and that it is therefore better to face history's truths—preferably with help from others.
Give birth again
To the dream.
By comparing a dream of the future to a birth, Angelou links the future to the past with a generational metaphor. The metaphorical language connects the life cycle, through which children are connected to their parents, to a broader historical cycle in which ancestors are connected to descendants. Furthermore, by using a metaphor of birth, Angelou positions this dream as a vulnerable, infant-like entity in need of constant nurturing and attention. In this work, dreaming of the future is a laborious but essential act of care, like parenthood.
History, despite its wrenching pain
Cannot be unlived, but if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.
These famous lines present a central thesis of the poem. Here, Angelou asserts that history has to be acknowledged and felt deeply, not out of any belief that the past was better than the present, but out of a desire to tackle the problems of the past and move forward into the future. The idea is slightly counterintuitive. Rather than urging her audience to put history aside in the interest of the future, Angelou states that the future is meaningless without the past—and that terrible mistakes will be repeated if they are not learned from.
I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
By uniting these three separate "I" speakers in one line, and paralleling them with an identical grammatical structure, Angelou hints at the essential oneness of the natural world. Just as the poem advocates for people to trade individualism for a more communitarian, peaceful approach, it also puts that approach on display by showing these three separate voices speaking as one. This rhetorical oneness is underscored through the definite article "the": by not speaking of any particular river, rock, or tree, but rather letting these representatives serve as stand-ins for broader categories, the poem links the world's diverse landscapes into a single, animate nature.
