“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
—The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
My intention was to write a post complaining about two important Zoom meetings, scheduled on the day of the Inauguration. What were they thinking?
Instead, there is hope in the sky, the light, the love I want to wrap around myself like a cloak of hope and beauty. Look up!
Recently, we have spoken to friends, we have found dozens of pieces of sea glass in long walks on the beach, I took my last quilt up for Linda to work her magic (not the last quilt I will make, but the last quilt top I completed in 2020), I began weaving a new brightly colored warp that will make an afghan (perhaps 45″ x 85″), and I heard from and wrote to former students sharing expression of mutual affection.
Today, our nation begins a new chapter.
Amanda Gorman's inaugural poem "The Hill We Climb" reads, in part: We've seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it, Would destroy our country if it 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.
Birds Fell from the Sky
by Jan Priddy
Birds fell from the sky this past
summer, a warning as defiling as riots
and bloody marble, reveals risk of living
in dangerous times when all times
prove dangerous.
Songbirds fell through the air, thousands
struck buildings in flight, dropped
to the ground, disoriented and dying.
The bodies were sent away, found
dead from hunger.
Imagine all birds starved, a silent
spring: lost sparrows, the gliding gulls,
clamoring crows, migrating geese
all vanished from beneath the blue—
all birds fallen.
Already no frogs croak, though we recall
the enormous thrub of their mating
that wakened the nighttime in song
blooming from every muddy pool
of still water.
Months have passed while we shelter,
distanced and disturbed. Nearing a year
of missing them. A year since we fed
family, and pressed a grandchild’s
cheek with kisses.
Pandemic slows time—witness our willful
retreat. Take my hand and together we
might follow birds flying ahead, beyond
our living. We might find courage before
we fall ourselves.
•
“Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.”
Psalm 30:5
•
•
•
IMPERFECT PATIENCE 
46 in the sand and from Crosby and Nash out of the darkness–finally my soul can take a rest-and AMANDA GORMAN!
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I think presenters must have been not only nervous but frightened. Two introductions were flawed despite the undeniable intelligence and courage of the people who gave them. And it was only after it was over that I took a breath and recognized that I too was afraid for their safety.
Time to breathe.
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I had the same thoughts regarding safety, how sad to be hypersensitive about that. But this inauguration has given me tremendous hope that we can get back to caring for our planet. And hope for changing many people’s thoughts from thinking that providing a living wage, equal access to healthcare and education, is socialism, when it is NOT. If we have to worry daily about food, shelter, healthcare and clothing, how can we realize our full potential, how can we provide action towards caring for the planet, or anything else for that matter?
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Thank you, Mary Jo. I feel the same. “We take care of our people and our world” is not a new or dangerous notion. It has been enshrined in the earliest laws and everywhere on earth.
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Gorman’s poem as printed by The Guardian:
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’ve 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’ve 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.
‘Never been more optimistic’: speeches, songs and celebrations cap Biden’s inauguration day – as it happened
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And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine,
but that doesn’t mean we are 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 to 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 lie in 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’s 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 it meant delaying democracy.
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 offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
So while once we asked, ‘How could 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 from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
We will rise from the golden hills of the west.
We will rise from the wind-swept north-east 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 rebuild, reconcile, and recover.
In every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country,
our people, diverse and beautiful, will emerge, battered and beautiful.
When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid.
The new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.
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