Read Online Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Amanda Gorman
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growing
Up & out of this hurt
If we’d rather char
Than chain this love.
Our only word for this is
Change.
CLOSURE
To begin again
Isn’t to go backwards,
But to decide to go.
Our story is not a circle carved,
But a spiral shed/shaped/spinning,
Shifting inward & outward ad infinitum ,
Like a lung on the bank of speech.
Breathe with us.
We disembark both beside & beyond
Who we were, who we are.
It is a return & a departure.
We spiral on, pushing up & out,
Like a growing thing
Making its form out of earth.
In a poem, there’s no end,
Just a place where the page
Glows wide & waiting,
Like a lifted hand,
Poised & paused.
Here is our bond, unbordered by bone.
Perhaps love is how it feels
To breathe the same air.
All we have is time, is now.
Time takes us on.
How we are moved says everything
About what we are to each other
& what are we to each other
If not everything.
WHAT WE CARRY
As kids we sat in grass,
Fished our hands into the dirt.
We felt that damp brown
Universe writhe, alert & alive,
Earth cupped in the boat of our palms.
Our eyes waxed wide with wonder.
Children understand:
Even grime is a gift,
Even what is mired is miraculous,
What is marred is still marvelous.
Ark: a boat like that which preserved Noah’s family & animals from the flood. The word comes from the Latin word arca , meaning “chest,” much like the Latin word arcere , “to close up, defend, or contain.” Ark can also mean the traditional place in a synagogue for the scrolls of the Torah.
That is to say,
We put words in the ark.
Where else to put them.
We continue speaking/writing/hoping/living/loving/fighting.
That is to say, we believe beyond disaster.
Even endings end
At the lip of land.
Time arcs into itself.
It is not a repeat, but a reckoning.
Days can’t help but walk two by two—
The past & present, paired & paralleled.
It is the future we save
From ourselves, for ourselves.
Words matter, for
Language is an ark.
Yes,
Language is an art,
An articulate artifact.
Language is a life craft.
Yes,
Language is a life raft.
We have recalled how to touch each other
& how to trust all that is good & all right.
We have learned our true names—
Not what we are called,
But what we are called
To carry forth from here.
What do we carry, if not
What & who we care most for.
What are we,
If not the price of light.
Loss is the cost of loving,
A debt more than worth every pulse & pull.
We know this because we have decided to
Remember.
The truth is,
One globe, wonder-flawed.
Here’s to the preservation
Of a light so terrific.
The truth is, there is joy
In discarding almost everything—
Our rage, our wreckage,
Our hubris, our hate,
Our ghosts, our greed,
Our wrath, our wars,
On the beating shore.
We haven’t any haven
For them here. Rejoice, for
What we have left
Behind will not free us,
But what we have left
Is all we need.
We are enough,
Armed only
With our hands,
Open but unemptied,
Just like a blooming thing.
We walk into tomorrow,
Carrying nothing
But the world.
THE HILL WE CLIMB
Mr. President and Dr. Biden, Madam Vice President and Mr. Emhoff, Americans, and the World:
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 justice.
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 this doesn’t mean we’re striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are
Up & out of this hurt
If we’d rather char
Than chain this love.
Our only word for this is
Change.
CLOSURE
To begin again
Isn’t to go backwards,
But to decide to go.
Our story is not a circle carved,
But a spiral shed/shaped/spinning,
Shifting inward & outward ad infinitum ,
Like a lung on the bank of speech.
Breathe with us.
We disembark both beside & beyond
Who we were, who we are.
It is a return & a departure.
We spiral on, pushing up & out,
Like a growing thing
Making its form out of earth.
In a poem, there’s no end,
Just a place where the page
Glows wide & waiting,
Like a lifted hand,
Poised & paused.
Here is our bond, unbordered by bone.
Perhaps love is how it feels
To breathe the same air.
All we have is time, is now.
Time takes us on.
How we are moved says everything
About what we are to each other
& what are we to each other
If not everything.
WHAT WE CARRY
As kids we sat in grass,
Fished our hands into the dirt.
We felt that damp brown
Universe writhe, alert & alive,
Earth cupped in the boat of our palms.
Our eyes waxed wide with wonder.
Children understand:
Even grime is a gift,
Even what is mired is miraculous,
What is marred is still marvelous.
Ark: a boat like that which preserved Noah’s family & animals from the flood. The word comes from the Latin word arca , meaning “chest,” much like the Latin word arcere , “to close up, defend, or contain.” Ark can also mean the traditional place in a synagogue for the scrolls of the Torah.
That is to say,
We put words in the ark.
Where else to put them.
We continue speaking/writing/hoping/living/loving/fighting.
That is to say, we believe beyond disaster.
Even endings end
At the lip of land.
Time arcs into itself.
It is not a repeat, but a reckoning.
Days can’t help but walk two by two—
The past & present, paired & paralleled.
It is the future we save
From ourselves, for ourselves.
Words matter, for
Language is an ark.
Yes,
Language is an art,
An articulate artifact.
Language is a life craft.
Yes,
Language is a life raft.
We have recalled how to touch each other
& how to trust all that is good & all right.
We have learned our true names—
Not what we are called,
But what we are called
To carry forth from here.
What do we carry, if not
What & who we care most for.
What are we,
If not the price of light.
Loss is the cost of loving,
A debt more than worth every pulse & pull.
We know this because we have decided to
Remember.
The truth is,
One globe, wonder-flawed.
Here’s to the preservation
Of a light so terrific.
The truth is, there is joy
In discarding almost everything—
Our rage, our wreckage,
Our hubris, our hate,
Our ghosts, our greed,
Our wrath, our wars,
On the beating shore.
We haven’t any haven
For them here. Rejoice, for
What we have left
Behind will not free us,
But what we have left
Is all we need.
We are enough,
Armed only
With our hands,
Open but unemptied,
Just like a blooming thing.
We walk into tomorrow,
Carrying nothing
But the world.
THE HILL WE CLIMB
Mr. President and Dr. Biden, Madam Vice President and Mr. Emhoff, Americans, and the World:
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 justice.
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 this doesn’t mean we’re striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are
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