Refusal by Maya Angelou

Refusal

Beloved,
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.

Maya Angelou

Commentary:
I chose to read this poem because the title of this poem seemed intriguing for me. " Refusal" could be the title of a young girl who does not want to pay attention to her parents or a young girl that does not want to be with her boyfriend anymore. I wanted to find out what the poem was about, so I decided to chose this poem for one of my posts for Maya Angelou( and the last since this is the 10th poem I have posted with commentary for Maya Angelou).
Just by taking a look at the poem, I knew that the poem would short and quick to the point because of its length. I also knew ahead of time that the poem would contain a lot of detail because it was short and Maya Angelou is very deep in all her poems.
After I finished reading the poem, I had to read it once more to fully comprehend the poem. When I finished doing this, I had grasped what Maya Angelou was expressing in her poem. I understood word for word and stanza by stanza. In the poem, "Refusal," Maya Angelou is talking about a lover that the speaker lost. The speaker of this poem refuses to give up his memorie because she knows that they will be reunited after death.
It is really sad when we lose our loved ones due to natural causes like death. This poem can be dedicated to almost any soul that one has lost in life.
Maya Angelou used figurative language to transmit her message to take advantage of the people and love that surrounds you because one day they may not be present.
Maya Angelou used imagery in her poem, "Refusal."
In the poem, she says, "Those sweet excesses that I do adore." In this phrase, Maya Angelou is saying that she adores the features that her lover had. Then, she says, " Of one more sweet encounter I will not deign to die." She uses the same descriptive word to describe the lover's actions. Sweet can mean enchanting or wonderful.