The (Inaugural) Poem --

Praise song for the day.

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.

It's actually rather poignant.

delivery was not so good- but there are some very good lines in this, and the way she leaves this on the threshold is very fitting and well done.

Again, IMO- which is all any of us have to measure by.

Thanks for posting this.

:hi:

And there aren't enough references to Nantucket.

A DUer named bornagainhooligan,
On a day when poetry became cool again,
Made a snotty remark
When we didn't need snark.
On this great day, don't be such a fool again.

(Just kidding, bornagain. J/K, just like you)

for a special occasion.

That said, I particularly like her homey references. "Darning a hole in a uniform" has significant relevance and pathos. And somehow, it all fit withwhat Obama said in his remarks, altho I don't think he shared the address with her ahead of time.

Nice poem for a nice moment.

i think she was nervous.

... about "I hear America singing, its varied carols I hear."

And I think she paid tribute to that ... talking about what Americans are doing today as a new day dawns for America

And I say this as a former English Lit major.

generation. Who some call tail-end boomers or shadow boomers and who others call Jonesers.

Continually negotiating a mass cacophony of the old and the new... ALWAYS caught on the cusp. But we keep on keeping on.

I got an immediate sense of it from what I heard before I finally saw it posted here (and thanks to the various DUers who put it up)!

The whole first part could easily be illustrated in video as an almost chaotic mass of overlapping images and voices - from the far past and near past. Then as time slows to the present, a sense is slowly made of a message within the chaos and that message helps to form a raison d'etre. And then you grab it and you move on.

interesting