What I’ve most loved about President Obama is how he always\u00a0appeals to the better angels of our nature. The fact that the opposite has also emerged so forcefully is a commentary not on him, but on the human condition and the tragedy of America\u2019s failure to come to grips with its\u00a0history of racial oppression.<\/p>\n

I will strive to keep the promise of that day eight years ago alive. Goodbye and thank you, President Obama, for all you have done. I will miss you beyond measure.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

“One Today”<\/em><\/p>\n

By Richard Blanco, as written for President Obama’s second inauguration<\/em><\/p>\n

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,<\/em>
\n peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces<\/em>
\n of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth<\/em>
\n across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.<\/em>
\n One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story<\/em>
\n told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.<\/em><\/p>\n

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors,<\/em>
\n each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:<\/em>
\n pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,<\/em>
\n fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows<\/em>
\n begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper\u2014<\/em>
\n bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,<\/em>
\n on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives\u2014<\/em>
\n to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did<\/em>
\n for twenty years, so I could write this poem.<\/em><\/p>\n

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,<\/em>
\n the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:<\/em>
\n equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,<\/em>
\n the “I have a dream” we keep dreaming,<\/em>
\n or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain<\/em>
\n the empty desks of twenty children marked absent<\/em>
\n today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light<\/em>
\n breathing color into stained glass windows,<\/em>
\n life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth<\/em>
\n onto the steps of our museums and park benches<\/em>
\n as mothers watch children slide into the day.<\/em><\/p>\n

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk<\/em>
\n of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat<\/em>
\n and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills<\/em>
\n in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands<\/em>
\n digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands<\/em>
\n as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane<\/em>
\n so my brother and I could have books and shoes.<\/em><\/p>\n

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains<\/em>
\n mingled by one wind\u2014our breath. Breathe. Hear it<\/em>
\n through the day’s gorgeous din of honking cabs,<\/em>
\n buses launching down avenues, the symphony<\/em>
\n of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,<\/em>
\n the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,<\/em>
\n or whispers across caf\u00e9 tables, Hear: the doors we open<\/em>
\n for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom,<\/em>
\n buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos d\u00edas<\/em>
\n in the language my mother taught me\u2014in every language<\/em>
\n spoken into one wind carrying our lives<\/em>
\n without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.<\/em><\/p>\n

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed<\/em>
\n their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked<\/em>
\n their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:<\/em>
\n weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report<\/em>
\n for the boss on time, stitching another wound<\/em>
\n or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,<\/em>
\n or the last floor on the Freedom Tower<\/em>
\n jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.<\/em><\/p>\n

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes<\/em>
\n tired from work: some days guessing at the weather<\/em>
\n of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love<\/em>
\n that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother<\/em>
\n who knew how to give, or forgiving a father<\/em>
\n who couldn’t give what you wanted.<\/em><\/p>\n

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight<\/em>
\n of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always\u2014home,<\/em>
\n always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon<\/em>
\n like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop<\/em>
\n and every window, of one country\u2014all of us\u2014<\/em>
\n facing the stars<\/em>
\n hope\u2014a new constellation<\/em>
\n waiting for us to map it,<\/em>
\n waiting for us to name it\u2014together.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"