"ONE TODAY" — THE 2013 INAUGURAL POEM

    

Inaugural Parade, 2013

The American poet Richard Blanco was selected by the White House to create a special poem to commemorate the Second Inauguration of President Obama. Some of you may have heard the poem recited by Blanco during the inaugural ceremony on January 21st.  In the event you missed it, you can read it below.

Any poem addressed to the entire nation will undoubtedly find its share of criticism, particularly from those who do not share the President's vision for the country. From my perspective, however, "One Today" succeeds because it captures not only the spirit and diversity of our nation, but also the President's conviction that what unites people is greater than what divides them.  "All of us," Blanco proclaims, are "as vital as the one light we move through."

                                                     One Today

                                                 by Richard Blanco

                      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 the 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 all 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, of 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.

To hear and see Richard Blanco's recitation of the inaugural poem, click here. Publications of Richard Blanco's poetry include City of a Hundred Fires (University of Pittsburg Press, 1998), by Richard Blanco; Directions to the Beach of the Dead (University of Arizona Press, 2005), by Richard Blanco; and Looking for the Gulf Motel (University of Pittsburg Press, 2012), by Richard Blanco.