Richard Blanco’s inauguration poem:<\/p>\n
One Today<\/strong><\/p>\n One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,<\/p>\n peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces<\/p>\n of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth<\/p>\n across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.<\/p>\n One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story<\/p>\n told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.<\/p>\n My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors,<\/p>\n each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:<\/p>\n pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,<\/p>\n fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows<\/p>\n begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper-<\/p>\n bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,<\/p>\n on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives-<\/p>\n to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did<\/p>\n for twenty years, so I could write this poem.<\/p>\n All of us as vital as the one light we move through,<\/p>\n the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:<\/p>\n equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,<\/p>\n the “I have a dream” we keep dreaming,<\/p>\n or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain<\/p>\n the empty desks of twenty children marked absent<\/p>\n today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light<\/p>\n breathing color into stained glass windows,<\/p>\n life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth<\/p>\n onto the steps of our museums and park benches<\/p>\n as mothers watch children slide into the day.<\/p>\n One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk<\/p>\n of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat<\/p>\n and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills<\/p>\n in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands<\/p>\n digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands<\/p>\n as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane<\/p>\n so my brother and I could have books and shoes.<\/p>\n The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains<\/p>\n mingled by one wind-our breath. Breathe. Hear it<\/p>\n through the day’s gorgeous din of honking cabs,<\/p>\n buses launching down avenues, the symphony<\/p>\n of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,<\/p>\n the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.<\/p>\n Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,<\/p>\n or whispers across caf\u00c3\u00a9 tables, Hear: the doors we open<\/p>\n for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom,<\/p>\n buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos d\u00c3\u00adas<\/p>\n in the language my mother taught me-in every language<\/p>\n spoken into one wind carrying our lives<\/p>\n without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.<\/p>\n One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed<\/p>\n their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked<\/p>\n their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:<\/p>\n weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report<\/p>\n for the boss on time, stitching another wound<\/p>\n or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,<\/p>\n or the last floor on the Freedom Tower<\/p>\n jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.<\/p>\n One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes<\/p>\n tired from work: some days guessing at the weather<\/p>\n of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love<\/p>\n that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother<\/p>\n who knew how to give, or forgiving a father<\/p>\n who couldn’t give what you wanted.<\/p>\n We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight<\/p>\n of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always-home,<\/p>\n always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon<\/p>\n like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop<\/p>\n and every window, of one country-all of us-<\/p>\n facing the stars<\/p>\n hope-a new constellation<\/p>\n waiting for us to map it,<\/p>\n waiting for us to name it-together<\/p>\n