Refusal
Refusal - context Summary
Love Across Lifetimes, 1983 Publication
This poem, published in 1983 in Maya Angelou’s Shaker, Why Don't You Sing?, moves across lovers, lifetimes, and even other worlds to insist that love persists beyond any single life. The speaker recalls beloved qualities—lip, hands, laughter—and asks whether they will meet again. The voice defies time and the body’s hurry, insisting that life should not end without one more tender encounter. The piece frames refusal as a passionate hold on possibility, rather than resignation. Contextually, it aligns with Angelou’s broader themes of resilience, connection, and spiritual continuity.
Read Complete AnalysesBeloved, in what other lives or lands have I known your lips, your hands your laughter brave, irreverent. Those sweet excesses that I do adore. What surety is there that we will meet again, on other worlds some future time undated. I defy my body's haste. Without the promise of one more sweet encounter I will not deign to die.
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