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One Today -- Richard Blanco's Inaugural poem
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 cafe tables, Hear: the doors we open
for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom,
buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos dias
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.
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Pretty much to be expected.
It's a nice poem. He seems have tried not to be platitudinous, but was obviously aware of the constraints: be patriotic, be inspirational, be multicultural, be patriotic, and be relatable to an audience of 300 million all at once.
We listened to this in AP
We listened to this in AP English this morning, and then discussed it. Where we weren't going way off topic, I came to the conclusion that it was rather... well... odd. It seemed like something that was better on paper, where the reader could take as long as they wanted to to absorb and imagine each individual detail. I'm not saying that I necessarily didn't like it, I just felt like it was kind of random, and off-topic itself. He seemed like he had a beautiful idea and a beautiful image, but tried to put it ALL in there. Apparently, it's also very similar to the last one that was read at an inaugural speech. Like Candlelight said up there, like it was expected to be, and I feel like he could have it made it so much better if it wasn't something being read to the whole country for the inauguration of the second term for the president.
I love that he got the chance to do this though, and I liked where he was coming from, though. It was kind of inspiring to see him up there, though he looked a little out of his element, I bet it was something ridiculously cool to have been chosen for that.
"Even if it lands you in a straight jacket or a padded cell, play the game, but play it your own way."
Candlelight and Ciel...
Thanks for your comments. They add a lot to my own understanding of the words, the poem, the event.
One thing that separates the young and the old is that we see things in a differet way -- you tend to have less baggage then me (old fart), are, perhaps, less apt to jump to being critical and are more apt to absorb what is presented with less filtration and see it for what it is -- either good or bad.
I first watched a poet read at John F. Kennedy's inauguration -- Robert Frost. My remembrance was that his voice was craggy and a bit hesitant and slow; and that helped me appreciate the words. Only later did I learn that because of the glare he couldn't read the poem he intended and so went from memory on another poem AND altered the words to fit the day. Amazing.
This poem, poet, experience, I witnessed by watching/listening live. We had the giant screen up in the YWP NxN Center and so it really was larger than life. My own sense was that it was pleasant, interesting, filled with images -- day-to-day, life images. It did not soar, or provide edge, but it helped me think of our country, it's people, it's individuals in their every day lives. A nice touch, I thought. The idea that all were assembled to watch a Washington pagent, but life goes on and it is about the people, not the leaders, that it is OUR government not the politicians'. The poem kept going, kept encompassing so much. Part of me began to feel like it was too much, that a poem should be representative but not necessarily all inclusive. And I thought about how poetry should be more lyrical, more mysterious, less literal. When he related some of the images to his own life, I felt like, yes, that's where you shoudl be. I wished he had given more weight to his own story, as a representative of every man rather than presenting a kind of third-person, omniscient view of everything.
His reading was very neutral, I thought. I think he intended that. And as a listener, I found myself wishing for more emotion, but often poets and writers in general are not very powerful readers of their own work. I wondered what the poem would sound like if a theatrical voice was reading the same words.
But as he finished, as he tied things together in the end, I felt the underlying image -- that while 'we' are here in Washington, the rest of the world is working, going about their daily lives and that 'we' in Washington should not forget that.
And that's a powerful thought, brought out by images we all could connect with. So in that way I thought it a highly effective, appropriate poem that bookended Obama's speech, that we really need to take action -- for the good of individuals -- regardless of our political beliefs, that the problems at hand demand action, not further examples of recalcitrance.
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts. And I encourage others to join in. Because in the last analysis, it's all about the words!
gg
inaugural poetry
My two cents:
I liked it a lot better just reading it than I did listening to it. I think as a reader you can absorb the images more fully and that it gives a greater sense of the inclusiveness that I think he was chasing when he wrote it. Honestly, I love the poem itself; it was very appropriate to the occasion, and-- politely disagreeing with GG here-- I liked that he wrote it in more general terms, rather than focusing on his own story so much. I think that neutrality made it more accessible to everyone, and more occasion-appropriate, and allowed him to put in more of those images that really make the poem as powerful as it is.
And I liked how... everyday it was. (That might not be the right word; down-to-earth? Something along those lines.) Those images really made the poem for me, as a student and a working girl myself.
His reading wasn't great, but like GG, I was not surprised, and I think it is better read than listened to.
I had a very similar
I had a very similar reaction.
If you want to view paradise, simply look around, and you will. Anything you want to... do it. Want to change the world? There's nothing to it.
threeguesses...
What a wonderful observation. I read your first sentence and immediately went and read it -- without the audio or video. I found myself interpreting the poem very differently; and I went deeper and the images were much more vibrant.
I agree with your choice of "everyday it was" as phrasing. I think that was the poet's intent (though how would I know?) because as I was listening to it, I had this image that it was a poem from Washington, in washington, with these tendrils spreading out into the rest of the country, and continent. Washington was the axle; spokes to other spots in the country.
You are right, too, in how this poem gains power upon further reading. ... I am thinking we should leave this up on the front page for a good while longer. A lot of people are reading it.... What did you, dear comment reader, think of this?
gg