21/01/2021
The Hill We Climb
-Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman at the Biden/Harris Inauguration Day
When day comes we ask ourselves
Where can we find light in this never ending shade?
The loss we carry, a sea we must wade,
We braved the belly of the beast
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace
And the norms and notions of “what just is”
Isn’t always justice.
And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it
Somehow we do it
Somehow we weathered and witnessed a nation
That isn’t broken but simply unfinished
We, the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves
And raised by a single mother
Can dream of becoming President
Only to find herself reciting for one.
And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine,
But that doesn’t mean we’re striving to form a union
That is perfect.
We are striving to forge our union- with purpose,
To compose a country committed
To all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man.
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us,
But what stands before us.
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
We must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms
So we can reach out our arms to one another
We seek harm for none and harmony for all
Let the globe, if nothing else, say “This is true,”
That even as we grieved, we grew
That even as we hurt, we hoped,
That even as we tired, we tried
That we’ll forever be tied together,
Victorious, not because we will never again know defeat,
But because we will never again sow division.
Scripture tells us to envision
That everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid.
If we’re to live up to our own time,
Then victory won’t lighten the blade
But in all the bridges we’ve made
That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb,
If only we dare it,
Because being American is more than a pride we inherit
It’s the past we step into and how we repair it
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation
Rather than share it
Would destroy our country if meant delaying democracy
And this effort very nearly succeeded
But while democracy can be periodically delayed
It can never be permanently defeated
In this truth, in this faith, we trust
For while we have our eyes on the future,
History has its eyes on us.
This is the era of just redemption
We feared it at its inception
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour
But within it we found the power
To author a new chapter
To author hope and laughter to ourselves
So…while once we asked “How can we possibly prevail over catastrophe?”
Now we assert, “How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?”
We will not march back to what was,
But move to what shall be.-
A country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold
Fierce and free
We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation
Because we know our inaction and inertia
Will be the inheritance of the next generation
Our blunders become their burdens
But one thing is certain
If we merge mercy with might
And might with right then love becomes our legacy
And change, our children’s birthright.
So let us leave behind a country
Better than the one we were left
With every breath in my bronze pounded chest
We will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one
We will rise from the gold land hills
We will rise from the windswept Northeast
Where our forefathers first realized revolution
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states
We will rise from the sun-baked South
We will build, reconcile and recover
In every known nook of our nation and every corner
Called our country
Our people diverse and beautiful
Will emerged, battered and beautiful,
When day comes, we step out of the shade of flame, unafraid,
The new dawn blooms, if we free it,
For there was always light
If only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it.
