reflections

january 20, 2009.

This day began—ostensibly—
just like each one before it;
a January morning,
shining brightly crystalline.

But the nation rose—remarkably—
to stand as one together;
presuming, while the world looked on,
to gather on the Capitol’s lawn,
two million strong and joyous
joined in glowing adoration,
loud with crowing exultation,
loose with fleeing desperation.

He steps onto the platform
and our shoulders slowly lift
as he promises an age of change,
a healing of the rift
that has brought us to this moment:
the inauguration of the 44th President
of the United States.

As he speaks, we shine with pride,
people of heightened perceptions,
hearing in his voice the end
of malice and deception.
He has now been, officially,
cemented into history,
standing tall in his new company—
men of power and prestige,
surrounded by the living and the dead.

He rallies with the steady words
of Washington and Lincoln,
while Dr. King recalls his dream,
and listens to the masses scream
their confident approval
of this most auspicious day.

He holds their futures in his hands—
religion, economy, foreign lands—
he bears all the weight of the stifled and poor,
the prosperous man and the children next door,
the soldier still absent and longing for home,
the foreigner wanting a place to belong.

One hand on the Bible,
he embodies a new age
of great responsibility
in which the world can clearly see
us rise above our circumstance
to greatness, not just happenstance,
and lead the world in justice once again.
The hearts of the nation believe,
for this moment,
that one man can change the world.

This date will live in infamy
along with December 7, 1941
and April 14, 1865
and August 6, 1945
and November 11, 1918
and April 3, 1968…
January 20, 2009.

The inauguration of the 44th President
of the United States.