Elizabeth Alexander's poem on the inauguration of Mr Obama as President captured America at the cusp of a new day. It is plain and simple, like a Whitman poem.
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 declaimed; 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.
This - the figuring it out at kitchen tables - is, atleast to me, what America has always been about: pragmatic and hopeful.
You can read the whole transcript at NY Times.