Our community at the Nation’s Mosque, Masjid Muhammad located in Washington, D.C., extends its deepest condolences to the family and friends of Poet Laureate Dr. Maya Angelou.

We celebrate the life, legacy, and spirit of such a wonderful and dynamic human soul, renowned and celebrated artist, author, civil rights activist, producer, and professor who emerged from adversity to the world stage. Being that she was created from “sounding clay,” she grew in life to become one of the most influential voices of our time and will be for generations to come

In September 2006, “America’s Imam,” the late Imam W. Deen Mohammed, in referring to her words, he said, “I love these words of Maya Angelou. In a movie she says, “The sun has come. The myth has gone. We see in the distance our long way home.” Beautiful! So rich when you connect, what she is saying with us, the African American community. She says, “The sun has come”; G-d opened her mind and gave her knowledge and insight. “The myth has gone,” the false pictures that once were realities in our minds are gone. She got the life out of the dead, the myth.

The myth gives you something dead, but it holds life. She was blessed to get into the myth and see the real truth, the real life, so that myth as a dead thing disappeared. She was able to then see where our people should be taking ourselves, where we should be taking our community life. So she concluded with “a long way home.”

“The sun has come. The myth has gone. We see in the distance our long way home.” It can be a long way, or it can be a short way, too, if we stop following the worst of our leaders and start following the best of our leaders – it could be a short distance.

We continue to hear her voice through her words, as she says in her poem, “Haters,” “Fulfill your dreams! You only have one life to live. When it’s your time to leave this earth, you want to be able to say, ‘I’ve lived my life and fulfilled my dreams. Now I’m ready to go HOME!”

Indeed our beloved Maya, it’s not the years in life that count but rather the life in the years, as you have demonstrated with grace and dignity. We salute you.

Imam Talib M. Shareef, chief master sergeant USAF, retired, is president of the Masjid Muhammad (The Nation’s Mosque) and imam/chaplain, National Muslim American Veterans Association. Reach him at imam@thenationsmosque.org.