One Today

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 días
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

 

-- "One Today" by Richard Blanco, written in honor of President Obama's second inauguration

Comments

[treesta]

Good morning. This is a powerful poem. Yet the first time I read it, the first time I listened to Blanco read it, the second time, the third time, I could not put my finger on why. Not until I read it after a night's sleep. The divisiveness and the rancor within our political landscape scream at us. This poem whispers. And whispers beckon to us to listen:

"Many prayers, but one light
breathing color into stained glass windows,...
The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains
mingled by one wind -- our breath. Breathe....
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,... (yes, Momista, that's you)
And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country -- all of us --..."

We're all in this thing called life together.

[Flannista]

I, too, could not put my finger on what makes this poem so beautiful. Blanco read it with great humility for one thing; but there is something about the repetition of "one": "one sun", "one light", one sky", etc. that both holds this poem together yet pushes it into new themes/directions.

I, too, thought of Momista when I heard the line, "a mother who knew how to give".

[Flannista]

Richard Blanco's website (linked at the end of the poem in this post) is very interesting. If you have a moment, make a visit.

[Flannista]

Another poem by Richard Blanco published in the New Republic on December 29, 2011:

*****
BURNING IN THE RAIN

Someday compassion would demand
I set myself free of my desire to recreate
my father, indulge in my mother’s losses,
strangle lovers with words, forcing them
to confess for me and take the blame.
Today was that day: I tossed them, sheet
by sheet on the patio and gathered them
into a pyre. I wanted to let them go
in a blaze, tiny white dwarfs imploding
beside the azaleas and ficus bushes,
let them crackle, burst like winged seeds,
let them smolder into gossamer embers—
a thousand gray butterflies in the wind.
Today was that day, but it rained, kept
raining. Instead of fire, water—drops
knocking on doors, wetting windows
into mirrors reflecting me in the oaks.
The garden walls and stones swelling
into ghostlier shades of themselves,
the wind chimes giggling in the storm,
a coffee cup left overflowing with rain.
Instead of burning, my pages turned
into water lilies floating over puddles,
then tiny white cliffs as the sun set,
finally drying all night under the moon
into papier-mâché souvenirs. Today
the rain would not let their lives burn.
*****

[treesta]

I think the thing that pushes this poem into new themes and directions is the unspoken choice that lies before us, collectively and individually. We can choose to listen to the whisper of one-ness, choose to stand together, to listen to the silent drum-call of the moon, to map and name the new constellation, or we can listen to that which screams at us in our lives.

[Flannista]

Thank you, treesta. I can tell that you've read this poem several times and with a "deep" listening.

[treesta]

Favorite lines:

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:

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,
the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:
... the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain
the empty desks of twenty children marked absent
today, and forever.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains
mingled by one wind -- our breath. Breathe. Hear it
through the day’s gorgeous din...

And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window,

[treesta]

I have to say that I loved one image from yesterday that I saw in real time:
during the inaugural parade, as Joe Biden ran from one side of the road to the other, with an enormous grin on his face, racing to shake hands, not with dignitaries or even adults, but most often shaking hands with the kids lining the parade route. Loved it. Absolutely loved it.

[treesta]

Well, enjoy your day, everyone. Off to work. I'm thinking of and holding Matiss, Momista, and Flann in prayer with each step of the day. Check in later.

[Flannista]

THE LATEST ABOUT MOMISTA:

She has taken a decidedly sad turn for the worse. Matissta's brother is flying into BWI from Phoenix tonight where Matissta will meet him to continue their journey to Long Island.

Thank you for your continued prayers and chants.

Matissta said: "The is one of the bad things about being the youngest in the family. I had the least amount of time to spend with her."

We are sad beyond words.

[PEACEsista]

Oh, I am so sorry. Dear Matiss, we are holding you and Momista in our hearts, in our thoughts and in our prayers. You are the youngest and you are the daughter, which is something very special that your brothers will never know. Each of you carries your mother, her very DNA, but you, dear Matiss, are your mother's most beautiful continuation.

You have commented on my blue eyes before. They were a gift from my mother. I know that you possess many gifts from your mother, too. She will always be with you in that way. So much love to you on this hard road.

[Flannista]

Thank you, PEACEsista.

[treesta]

Sigh. We stand with you, our hearts ache with you, we pray for you. Love and light. Please be careful traveling.

[Flannista]

I just lifted weights and am continuing to prepare for the first part of a 4-part workshop I am doing at a retirement home over the course of this year. At lunchtime, I will help out Matissta and walk Huck.

What the living do.

[Justista]

Yes, what the living do. Love to you Matiss.

[PEACEsista]

Flann, thank you for posting this powerful poem today. There is indeed hope and healing in these words. I missed the Inauguration and am grateful to have had the opportunity to read and hear Richard Blanco's poem today.

[Flannista]

You are welcome, PEACE.

I've read it several more times -- I've needed the healing power of poetry in a deep way today -- and every time, I discover something new. For example, the last time I read it, this line:

*****
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.
*****

[Flannista]

Listened to this poem again . . . and AGAIN am struck by the humility with which Blanco read his work.

What a lovely poet.

[babysis]

Thanks for posting the poem. I missed it on Monday but it is stunning, as you said on that day. Just beautiful.

Much, much love and prayers and thoughts and tears for Matiss and Momista and all their beloveds.