Even the astronauts in space took note of today’s inauguration of President Barack Obama. The astronauts took photos of the US capital from their perch in the heavens and you can read about it at space.com: Astronauts See Obama Inauguration Site From Space
Inaugural address
During his Inaugural address, President Obama emphasized equality:
“It
is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began.
For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and
daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not
complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else
under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love
we commit to one another must be equal as well. Our journey is not
complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the
right to vote. Our journey is not complete until we find a better way
to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a
land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are
enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country. Our
journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of
Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know
that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm. ” –
Barack Obama during today’s Inaugural address
You can watch the entire Inaugural address here.
Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco
There have only been, in the entire course of the history of the United States, four other inaugural poets. Richard Blanco brings the total to five.
From PEN America:
“Kennedy introduced the concept in 1961 by asking Robert Frost to read
an original poem at the inauguration, and Clinton revisited it by
choosing Maya Angelou in 1993 and Miller Williams in 1997. Elizabeth
Alexander read at Obama’s 2009 inauguration, and now we’ve exhausted the
entire history of the title.”
Richard Blanco is, at 44 years old, the youngest person to ever serve as inaugural poet. He is the first immigrant, first Latino, and first openly gay person too.
His poem, “One Today”, speaks to unity and the American Experience. Here is a transcript of his poem, courtesy of ABC News:
“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.
