When You Come
When You Come - fact Summary
Collected in and Still I Rise
This poem is included in Maya Angelou's poetry collection And Still I Rise. It is a brief, lyric piece that personifies memory as an uninvited visitor leading the speaker back to an attic of past moments. The poem lists small keepsakes—kisses, borrowed loves, secret words—framed as childlike treasures, and closes with the speaker's strong emotional response. Knowing the poem's placement in Angelou's collection helps readers situate its intimate, reflective tone alongside her wider themes of remembrance, resilience, and identity without assuming a specific biographical occasion.
Read Complete AnalysesWhen you come to me, unbidden, Beckoning me To long-ago rooms, Where memories lie. Offering me, as to a child, an attic, Gatherings of days too few. Baubles of stolen kisses. Trinkets of borrowed loves. Trunks of secret words, I cry.
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