Poetry Monday: The Hill We Climb

The Hill We Climb

 When day comes we ask ourselves, 

where can we find light in this never-ending shade?

 The loss we carry,

 a sea we must wade 

We've braved the belly of the beast

 We've learned that quiet isn't always peace

 And the norms and notions

 of what just is

 Isn’t always just-ice

 And yet the dawn is ours

 before we knew it 

Somehow we do it

 Somehow we've weathered and witnessed

 a nation that isn’t broken

 but simply unfinished

 We the successors of a country and a time

 Where a skinny Black girl 

descended from slaves and raised by a single mother

 can dream of becoming president

 only to find herself reciting for one

 And yes we are far from polished

 far from pristine

 but that doesn’t mean we are

 striving to form a union that is perfect

 We are striving to forge a union with purpose

 To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and

 conditions of man 

And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us

 but what stands before us

 We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,

 we must first put our differences aside

 We lay down our arms 

so we can reach out our arms

 to one another

 We seek harm to none and harmony for all

 Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:

 That even as we grieved, we grew

 That even as we hurt, we hoped 

That even as we tired, we tried

 That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious

 Not because we will never again know defeat

 but because we will never again sow division

 Scripture tells us to envision

 that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree

 And no one shall make them afraid

 If we’re to live up to our own time

 Then victory won’t lie in the blade

 But in all the bridges we’ve made

 That is the promise to glade

 The hill we climb

 If only we dare

 It's because being American is more than a pride we inherit,

 it’s the past we step into 

and how we repair it

 We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation

 rather than share it

 Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy

 And this effort very nearly succeeded

 But while democracy can be periodically delayed

 it can never be permanently defeated

 In this truth

 in this faith we trust

 For while we have our eyes on the future

 history has its eyes on us 

This is the era of just redemption

 We feared at its inception 

We did not feel prepared to be the heirs

 of such a terrifying hour

 but within it we found the power

 to author a new chapter

 To offer hope and laughter to ourselves

 So while once we asked,

 how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?

 Now we assert

 How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?

 We will not march back to what was

 but move to what shall be

 A country that is bruised but whole,

 benevolent but bold,

 fierce and free 

We will not be turned around

 or interrupted by intimidation

 because we know our inaction and inertia

 will be the inheritance of the next generation

 Our blunders become their burdens

 But one thing is certain:

 If we merge mercy with might,

 and might with right,

 then love becomes our legacy

 and change our children’s birthright

 So let us leave behind a country

 better than the one we were left with

 Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,

 we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one

 We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,

 we will rise from the windswept northeast

 where our forefathers first realized revolution

 We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,

 we will rise from the sunbaked south

 We will rebuild, reconcile and recover

 and every known nook of our nation and

 every corner called our country,

 our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,

 battered and beautiful 

When day comes we step out of the shade,

 aflame and unafraid

 The new dawn blooms as we free it

 For there is always light,

 if only we’re brave enough to see it

 If only we’re brave enough to be it 

 Amanda Gorman 

 This is of course the poem that young Amanda Gorman performed at the Inaugural ceremony for President Biden and Vice-President Harris last Wednesday: January 20, 2021. She read it quickly, musically, conducting the words with graceful hands. The most proximate influence of rap is obvious, but seeing it in print reveals its classic poetic shape. In the poem’s first line it begins with the dawn and asks where we can find the daylight, and it comes back to the dawn in the final lines. Among other things, the dawn can symbolize the beginning of the Biden administration, for this poem is part of an old tradition: it is an occasional poem, a poem written for an occasion, that was often read aloud on that occasion.

 Gorman had reportedly written much of this poem when the attack on the Capitol occurred the week before, and there are obvious references to it. But that context really begins with the poem’s title, that refers metaphorically to climbing the hill towards a more perfect union, but it gets extra weight from the suggestion of climbing Capitol Hill specifically. 

 The poem is full of the sounds that are found in rap as well as centuries of written poems: assonance, alliteration, internal rhyme, slant rhyme, for example. Those sounds dominate and give the poem energy and shimmer. There are many quotable passages, but one of them certainly is:

 It's because being American is more than a pride we inherit,

 it’s the past we step into

 and how we repair it 

We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation

 rather than share it 

 The poetry of that final couplet is powerful, derived from the sound but also from the way it succinctly sums up exactly what’s been happening these past four years, dominated by “a force that would shatter our nation/rather than share it.” 

 A poem on a great national occasion, and on the subject of America, would naturally include a bit of geography ( “We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,/ we will rise from the windswept northeast” etc.) but I was specifically reminded of similarly effusive references in Dr. King’s speech at the March on Washington in 1963. But while this and other rhetoric responds to the occasion, there are lines, such as the ones I quoted above, that transcend the occasion as well.

 At the age of 23, Amanda Gorman is the youngest poet ever to read for a presidential Inauguration. Aflame and unafraid, she triumphed.   Because her presentation is as important as the written words, a video of her Inaugural performance is included below.  The final written version of this poem will be published in a book in September.  That book is already a best seller.