The speaker observes a natural landscape, thinking about how it once was home to now-extinct prehistoric animals who have left only fossils behind. These animals' fear in the face of extinction and death is now lost to history. Today, a rock seems to invite the speaker and humanity as a whole to stand on it and face fate—but not to use it as a hiding place. After all, the rock tells listeners, they are, as humans, almost angel-like and therefore have no reason to hide away or act brutish or ignorant. Instead, it's time for people to emerge and show themselves, the rock says.
Meanwhile, the river invites people to rest on its banks. It addresses humanity as a collective of alienated, isolated, competitive individuals who are constantly either attacking one another or else enduring attack. The environmental destruction of war has impacted and damaged the river. The river urges humanity to give up war and embrace peace, relaxing on the riverside and learning the music of the natural world. This was the music that nature knew before human self-interest came into being.
The speaker explains that people feel a natural desire to follow the instructions of the rock and river, regardless of their race, religion, nationality, sexuality, class, or calling: they can all hear the speech of trees, which tell them to sit by the river. Every living person descends from an ancestor who has paved the way for them. Some of these ancestors were the ones who named the river—Angelou lists a number of Native American tribes who once called this area home. She then names a variety of ethnic groups from around the world who arrived at the river either by force, as slaves, or by choice, as immigrants. The tree, the rock, and the river invite the descendants of these many people to join them. It's tempting to ignore history because of its horrors, but that won't work. Instead, it's better to face history, and in doing so move past it so that it isn't repeated. The people are instructed to watch the break of day and give birth to the dream of a different future.
People of all genders and ages are told to take this dream and shape it into an individual form that speaks to their own desires and feelings. By embracing hope for the future they can move away from fear. The people should have the courage to look at nature, just as people throughout history have—and indeed just as the prehistoric animals mentioned in the poem's beginning did. As the new day begins, people may have the courage to look others in the eye and simply wish them a good morning.
