Human Family (Monday Poem)

by Maya Angelou

 

 

I note the obvious differences

in the human family.

Some of us are serious,

some thrive on comedy.

 

Some declare their lives are lived

as true profundity,

and others claim they really live

the real reality.

 

The variety of our skin tones

can confuse, bemuse, delight,

brown and pink and beige and purple,

tan and blue and white.

 

I've sailed upon the seven seas

and stopped in every land,

I've seen the wonders of the world,

not yet one common man.

 

I know ten thousand women

called Jane and Mary Jane,

but I've not seen any two

who really were the same.

 

Mirror twins are different

although their features jibe,

and lovers think quite different thoughts

while lying side by side.

 

We love and lose in China,

we weep on England's moors,

and laugh and moan in Guinea,

and thrive on Spanish shores.

We seek success in Finland,

are born and die in Maine.

In minor ways we differ,

in major we're the same.

 

I note the obvious differences

between each sort and type,

but we are more alike, my friends,

than we are unalike.

 

We are more alike, my friends,

than we are unalike.

 

We are more alike, my friends,

than we are unalike.

 

 

from The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou, by Maya Angelou

Random House, 1994