Poetry Friday: The Inaugural Poem

Poetry Friday is hosted by  Tabatha Yeatts: The Opposite of Indifference

On Inauguration Monday, I could not wait to hear what President Obama would say.  And, he did not disappoint.  I also could not wait to her what Richard Blanco would recite.  And, I was not disappointed in that, either.  I loved the message, of course, the call to all of us, as Americans, to recognize our collective journey under one sky:

"One Today"

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,

peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces

of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth

across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.

One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story

told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning's mirrors,

each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:

pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,

fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows

begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper—

bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,

on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives—

to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did

for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,

the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:

equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,

the "I have a dream" we keep dreaming,

or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won't explain

the empty desks of twenty children marked absent

today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light

breathing color into stained glass windows,

life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth

onto the steps of our museums and park benches 

as mothers watch children slide into the day.

                                     One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk

                                     of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat

                                     and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills

                                     in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands

                                    digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands

                                    as worn as my father's cutting sugarcane

                                    so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

                                    The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains

                                    mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it

                                    through the day's gorgeous din of honking cabs,

                                    buses launching down avenues, the symphony

                                    of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,

                                    the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

                                   Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,

                                   or whispers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open

                                   for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom,

                                   buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos días

                                   in the language my mother taught me—in every language

                                   spoken into one wind carrying our lives

                                   without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

                                  One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed

                                  their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked

                                  their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:

                                  weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report

                                  for the boss on time, stitching another wound

                                 or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,

                                 or the last floor on the Freedom Tower

                                 jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

                                 One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes

                                 tired from work: some days guessing at the weather

                                 of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love

                                 that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother

                                 who knew how to give, or forgiving a father

                                 who couldn't give what you wanted.

                               We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight

                               of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,

                               always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon

                               like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop

                               and every window, of one country—all of us—

                               facing the stars

                               hope—a new constellation

                               waiting for us to map it,

                               waiting for us to name it—together.