Northern Drive to St Lucy
Hurricane Season in Barbados. Are you ready for it? Click on Picture for Today's Weather Forecast.Have a super day come rain or shine.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Poem for President Obama
Praise song for the day
(Elizabeth Alexander, Poet)
Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.
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.
Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."
Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.
What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.
In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp --
praise song for walking forward in that light.
Pasted from <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20text-poem.html>
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Dear Mr. President,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Amit Kshirsagar.
I am from Ann Arbor, MI.
I would like to give you this
song /parody based upon The famous
Wilbert Harrison song 'Kansas City',
which was later covered by The Beatles in
1962, and later revised by Paul McCartney.
When will our troops come home?
Hey Mr. Obama, when will our troops
come home?
Oh! Bagdad City!
I want our troops to come back home.
The U.S. troops have gone to fight a war
in Iraq.
But, it's been a long, long, time since
our soldiers have come back home.
They might have to take a train.
They might have to take a plane.
Even if they have to walk, I hope that
they get home safely just the same!
Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!
Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!
Hey Mr. Obama, when will our troops come
home?
It's been eight long years since our U.S.
soldiers have been back home!
Hi amit
ReplyDeleteIt's a parody, all right! Thank you very much for sharing.
To my readers, I suppose I should explain how I arrived at that conclusion that Amit's composition is indeed a parody. I might as well do that real soon. I promise to do so on the blogs dealing with "Poetry and Literary Terms" in the English Language.
ReplyDelete