tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21083673.post2636920480150073868..comments2023-10-28T03:07:12.758-07:00Comments on Mirror On America: The 2013 Inauguration of President Barack Obama and Vice-President Biden Brian http://www.blogger.com/profile/07872444863142531165noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21083673.post-84086562389518988632013-01-21T11:24:41.812-08:002013-01-21T11:24:41.812-08:00Richard Blanco's inaugural poem:
"One To...Richard Blanco's inaugural poem:<br /><br />"One Today"<br /><br />One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,<br />peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces<br />of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth<br />across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.<br />One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story<br />told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.<br /> <br />My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors,<br />each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:<br />pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,<br />fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows<br />begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper -- bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,<br />on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives -- to teach geometry, or ring up groceries as my mother did<br />for twenty years, so I could write this poem.<br /> <br />All of us as vital as the one light we move through,<br />the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:<br />equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,<br />the “I have a dream” we keep dreaming,<br />or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain<br />the empty desks of twenty children marked absent<br />today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light<br />breathing color into stained glass windows,<br />life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth<br />onto the steps of our museums and park benches <br />as mothers watch children slide into the day.<br /> <br />One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk<br />of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat<br />and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills<br />in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands<br />digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands<br />as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane<br />so my brother and I could have books and shoes.<br /> <br />The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains<br />mingled by one wind -- our breath. Breathe. Hear it<br />through the day’s gorgeous din of honking cabs,<br />buses launching down avenues, the symphony<br />of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,<br />the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.<br /> <br />Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,<br />or whispers across cafe tables, Hear: the doors we open<br />for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom,<br />buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos días<br />in the language my mother taught me -- in every language<br />spoken into one wind carrying our lives<br />without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.<br /> <br />One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed<br />their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked<br />their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:<br />weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report<br />for the boss on time, stitching another wound <br />or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,<br />or the last floor on the Freedom Tower<br />jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.<br /> <br />One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes<br />tired from work: some days guessing at the weather<br />of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love<br />that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother<br />who knew how to give, or forgiving a father<br />who couldn’t give what you wanted.<br /> <br />We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight<br />of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always -- home,<br />always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon<br />like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop<br />and every window, of one country -- all of us --<br />facing the stars<br />hope -- a new constellation<br />waiting for us to map it,<br />waiting for us to name it -- togetherrikyrahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10982657053583534299noreply@blogger.com