Elizabeth Alexander's lovely and inspiring inauguration poem...
Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.
Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."
We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.
We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."
We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.
Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.
Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.
Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."
Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.
What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.
In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.
5 comments:
Yeah, I liked it - of course, I, too, read it rather than heard it, but I do so like not just the moment it captures, but the hope that fills it.
Not optimism, which can be dashed at the slightest sign of loss. Hope knows that failure and setback await, because hope is from God and all the world will fight against it. Hope is the best thing; united in faith and love it is integral to being a Christian. We look forward, thinking of this day as the first day of America's renewal.
We were talking about this poem at the community meal tonight. Several were complaining about the delivery, but several were encouraged by its substance. Thanks for posting it and giving us a chance to consider it further.
thanks for posting the transcript of the poem. it is quite powerful.
one of the things i loved about the inauguration in general was the acknowledgement of our problems and injustices but there was an air of committment to the kind of hope that Geoffrey wrote about.
thanks be to God! it feels like a new day!
Beautiful thoughts.
Dan, it's nice to see your photos of that misty walk. It's nice to read this poem, here, coupled with an image of hope.
Thinking of you and wishing you a great 2009. :)
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