Praise Song For the Day
Each day we go about our business, walking past each other,
catching each other's 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 disclaimed,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.
By Elizabeth Alexander
Read at President Obama's Inauguration,
January 20, 2009
