POETRY FRIDAY

Books for Christmas campaign? I love it! Actually, though, I have had my own personal Books for Christmas campaign for many years. I also have Books for Birthdays, Books for Baby Showers, Books for Anniversaries, and Books Just for the Sake of Books.

Anyway, I know what book I'm giving people for Christmas this year. I'm giving AMAZING PEACE by Dr. Maya Angelou. When I came across it last week at Tattered Cover, I thought it was a new book. In researching a little more, however, I've discovered it was actually published three years ago, in 2005. Guess it's not a new book, then, instead it's just a "new to me" book.

AMAZING PEACE is a poem that Maya Angelou read at the White House Christmas Tree Lighting in 2005. It's not, however, a poem only for people who celebrate Christmas in the Christian sense.

We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas.

We beckon this good season to wait a while with us.

We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come.

Peace.

Come and fill our world with your majesty.

We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian,

Implore you to stay awhile with us.

So we may learn by your shimmering light

How to look beyond complexion and see community…

Read the rest of the poem here.

The book comes with a CD of Maya Angelou reading the poem. That alone was enough to make me snatch it up immediately, but if I had any doubts, the illustrations, done by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher, would have further convinced me. 

Right now, in my world, in my country, in the lives of some people I love dearly, even in my own heart, peace seems very far away. This is the book I'm giving for Christmas…