A Brave and Startling Truth

A Brave and Startling Truth

Dedicated to the hope for peace, which lies, sometimes hidde, in every hearth.

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet

Traveling through casual space

Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns

To a destination where all signs tell us

It is possible and imperative that we learn

A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it

To the day of peacemaking

When we release our fingers

From fists of hostility

And allow the pure air to cool our palms

When we come to it

When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate

And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean

When battlefields and coliseum

No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters

Up with the bruised and bloody grass

To lie in identical plots in foreign soil

When the rapacious storming of the churches

The screaming racket in the temples have ceased

When the pennants are waving gaily

When the banners of the world tremble

Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it

When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders

And children dress their dolls in flags of truce

When land mines of death have been removed

And the aged can walk into evenings of peace

When religious ritual is not perfumed

By the incense of burning flesh

And childhood dreams are not kicked awake

By nightmares of abuse

When we come to it

Then we will confess that not the Pyramids

With their stones set in mysterious perfection

Nor the Gardens of Babylon

Hanging as eternal beauty

In our collective memory

Not the Grand Canyon

Kindled into delicious color

By Western sunsets

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe

Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji

Stretching to the Rising Sun

Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,

Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores

These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it

We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe

Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger

Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace

We, this people on this mote of matter

In whose mouths abide cankerous words

Which challenge our very existence

Yet out of those same mouths

Come songs of such exquisite sweetness

That the heart falters in its labor

And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet

Whose hands can strike with such abandon

That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living

Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness

That the haughty neck is happy to bow

And the proud back is glad to bend

Out of such chaos, of such contradiction

We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it

We, this people, on this wayward, floating body

Created on this earth, of this earth

Have the power to fashion for this earth

A climate where every man and every woman

Can live freely without sanctimonious piety

Without crippling fear

When we come to it

We must confess that we are the possible

We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world

That is when, and only when

We come to it.

Maya Angelou

During the first flight test of NASA’s Orion, the spacecraft flew more than 3,600 miles into space to test many of the systems critical to safety before it begins carrying astronauts to new destinations in the solar system, including to an asteroid and on toward Mars. While the flight tested thousands of hardware and software elements, Orion also carried with it poetry written by American poet Dr. Maya Angelou.

Text of Angelou’s poem, A Brave and Startling Truth flown on Orion during its December 2014 voyage into space was presented April 6 to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden during a ceremony at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington.

“It is fitting that Maya Angelou’s prophetic words be flown not only outside the bounds of our Earth, but on the maiden voyage of a spacecraft that represents humanity’s aspirations to move beyond our planet, to reach higher, and become more than we have ever been,” said Bolden. “Through art, and the unique perspective of people like Maya Angelou, our discoveries, and the new facts and expanded understanding brought to us by exploration, are transformed into meaning.”

Angelou was a renowned and influential American voice. She was a celebrated poet, memoirist, educator and civil rights activist, and passed away a few months before Orion’s flight test.

During the ceremony at NASA Headquarters, Bolden was joined by Angelou’s son, Guy B. Johnson, and grandsons Elliott Jones and Colin A. Johnson.

“We are honored to continue the legacy of Dr. Maya Angelou with her literary items flown on Orion,” said Colin A. Johnson. “They truly embody my grandmother’s quote, ‘I stand alone and go forth as thousand’ as they represent all on us on this planet as they push the edges of what we think is achievable.”

Lockheed Martin, NASA’s prime contractor for Orion, composed the manifest for the flight test in collaboration with NASA. The company’s vice president and program manager for Orion, Mike Hawes, also attended the ceremony.

“So much of Dr. Angelou’s work speaks to human ambition and dreams,” said Hawes. “It was an honor to take some of her work with us on Orion’s first flight—a moment in history signifying the pursuit of dreams for many years to come.”

Orion’s successful flight was an uncrewed two orbit, 4.5 hour test that compiled many of the riskiest events Orion and its future crews will experience during their missions. After flying 3,600 miles in altitude, Orion reentered the atmosphere at speeds of 20000 mph and temperatures of about 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. Other items were flown on Orion in several stowage lockers placed in the spacecraft before its flight, including an assortment of flags, coins, patches, pins, educational items and a variety artistic works. Other excerpts of Angelou’s writings were also flown, including When Great Trees Fall, Our Grandmothers, On the Pulse of Morning, Phenomenal Woman, And Still I Rise, Caged Bird, Weekend Glory and the book I Shall Not Be Moved.

Source: NASA