Embrace Calm

Let’s all embrace calm
Quiet our souls and listen
Hear each other’s hearts

Let’s all embrace calm
Be still and let minutes pass
In loving silence

Embrace calm with me
Sync your heart to the tick-tock
Of peaceful minutes

Embrace calm today
Reflect on the poignant words
Of Amanda’s poem

Anderson Cooper
Interviewed that young lady
Then posted a link

Many people wrote
Responded to interview
With posts like this one:

Replying to @andersoncooper and @TheAmandaGorman
“Awww I loved that,
you all sat and talked about poetry for at least 5 minutes.
So relaxing.
Probably the least stressed ya have been for 4 years.
Words have power for good too..
let’s rinse off the negative.”

Amanda Gorman’s Inauguration Poem:
“The Hill We Climb”

It was posted in paragraph form.
I am sure that’s not how she wrote it.
I have tried to separate the stanzas as she might have,
I am sure I don’t have them all right, but I tried…
and the poem is so beautiful that
even written as prose – it is downright gorgeous!

Mr. President, Dr. Biden, Madam Vice President, 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.
In 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 that doesn’t mean
we are striving to form
a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge
our 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 her 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 forest 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 it 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 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 wind-swept Northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution.
We will rise from the Lake Rim cities
of the Midwestern states.
We will rise from the sun-baked South.
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
in every known nook of our nation,
in 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,
USA national poet laureate

Let’s embrace calm –
and be brave enough
in our calmness
to “step out of the shade
aflame and unafraid…”

Ready to join the cause of unity and peace.
Ready to work for social and racial equality.
Ready to do our part to make the world
a better place.

Love to you,
JanBeek