Posted on 01/20/2009 12:58:24 PM PST by TheBlueMax
The Gift Outright
The land was ours before we were the land’s.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia,
But we were England’s, still colonials,
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.
— Robert Frost
Of History and Hope
We have memorized America,
how it was born and who we have been and where.
In ceremonies and silence we say the words,
telling the stories, singing the old songs.
We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.
The great and all the anonymous dead are there.
We know the sound of all the sounds we brought.
The rich taste of it is on our tongues.
But where are we going to be, and why, and who?
The disenfranchised dead want to know.
We mean to be the people we meant to be,
to keep on going where we meant to go.
But how do we fashion the future? Who can say how
except in the minds of those who will call it Now?
The children. The children. And how does our garden grow?
With waving hands — oh, rarely in a row —
and flowering faces. And brambles, that we can no longer allow.
Who were many people coming together
cannot become one people falling apart.
Who dreamed for every child an even chance
cannot let luck alone turn doorknobs or not.
Whose law was never so much of the hand as the head
cannot let chaos make its way to the heart.
Who have seen learning struggle from teacher to child
cannot let ignorance spread itself like rot.
We know what we have done and what we have said,
and how we have grown, degree by slow degree,
believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become —
just and compassionate, equal, able, and free.
All this in the hands of children, eyes already set
on a land we never can visit — it isn’t there yet —
but looking through their eyes, we can see
what our long gift to them may come to be.
If we can truly remember, they will not forget.
By Miller Williams President Clinton’s Inaugural Address 1997
I attended a poetry reading years ago at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in NY. The poets included Czeslaw Milosz, Octavio Paz, and Derek Walcott. It also included one American, Clinton’s Poet Laureate, a black woman named Rita Dove (whose primary claim to fame was being black).
The first people read incredible stuff. She read a poem - well, actually a prose musing - about her vagina. And, of course, a few incoherent words about being black.
I was terribly embarrassed for the US.
“Just be glad Obama’s not from Nantucket”
Winner. The day’s only bright spot.
So...Bill...Shatner...is...a...poet...laureate???
/sarc
Anyone STILL believe all Cultures are Equal?
Anyone STILL believe that diversity is our strength?
Anyone STILL believe that Multi-Culturalism weaves improvement into our society?
Anyone STILL believe that Black Racism doesn’t exist?
Those who do, need to have their brain housing group recalibrated by a 2x4!
Of course none of those count because they weren't Democrats so they can't be considered brilliant intellectuals.
I saw no more than two minutes of the Coronation, fitfully , in three small doses....
Read something about another “Poem” being read, but no
mention of whom.
Having now read selected lines of Ms ALexander’s
, I think they should have
done something novel and had her recite every other line,
with Cornel West doing the same. They would’ve made a great duo. It just gets worse and worse my friend.
Which reminds me, did either of Bush’s inaugs feature a poet?
Dr. Alexander: 2009 Inaugural Poet
university of Pennsylvania Almanac | January 20, 2009
Posted on 01/20/2009 9:36:42 AM PST by gondramB
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2168142/posts
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