Words of Fire and Hope: For Amanda Gorman
She spoke words of fire and hope,
The poet climbing the hill, taking a people with her,
Fighting against the outgoing tide of grief and mischief,
Carrying the flag of hope –
Not of a State, no, no, but of a better humanity, a richer tomorrow;
Carrying it to the peak of possibility in a moment
Captured for future generations and going viral, as hope can do.
Viral hope, virulent hope, words of fire in the struggle to tell a common story,
Find a way out of the chronic divisions that all societies bear,
Fruits of a distant past when fear was king, and surface tensions
Churned in the struggle to configure identities so new to the worlds of state and empire.
Iteration as coagulation, fragmenting in constant repetitions of surprise and
Rejection of difference, the denial of our human connections
To one another, to the Earth and sun and wind; and all things Sacred:
Those living things who know what we have forgotten, that we are all
Part of a grand tale, an exploration of possibilities
And the skáld, a seer, has the ability to awaken us from our slumber
With beauty and wonder, the coupling of deep knowing with the spoken word.
This one has that: She spoke words of fire and wonder,
Prophet, Goddess, Bard, Angel, Deva, and mortal reminding the parched listeners
That Hope is not an empty word but that it requires commitment!
She reminded us too of the past, and spoke of the future as here and now
Cemented into our very breathing, the beating of hearts,
The hum of spirit and the rising consciousness, that right now,
Here, where we stand, we can ignite the futures before us.
Yes, she made it plain to us that now, again,
We have another chance to remember the old ways
Wrought new into the doings of our busy days.
Yes, she spoke hope to a weariness that sits deep within the battered heart!
Fire in her eyes, perfect and precise mudras of hand and tilt of chin,
No nonsense — just good home truths!
A supreme artist of humanity at its best. She spoke not to cast out darkness,
But to embrace it as a lover embraces the unknown terror of surrender.
She gave voice to the yin and yang of it all, to the courage it takes to hope;
But not to be lazy in our hoping, rather to work harder than ever for hope grows
From the striving of each one of us, all working and challenging
Our own smallness to become grander expressions of Humanity.
Her words evoked the yearning in us to be more than we are today, calling us
To embrace the universality of Being as a challenge,
A work in progress, rising via each act of love and courage above the
Tumult, never free from it but neither defined by it, somehow
Ennobling the gritty realities, finding the miracles in each moment of
Being here, now!
Yes, she a young poet standing proud and fearless,
Yet so deeply vulnerable, climbing the hill with us,
Speaking words of grace and grit:
Words that somehow set us free to hope, again
Words that thunder across the planet
Words of prophetic and loving power
Words that belong to all ages, to all humanity,
To the wind and trees, the stars and earthworms,
Sacred moon and sun, rolling waves and oceans deep,
Giving form to the shape-shifting sonority of the cosmic harmonies,
Heralding the possibility of a new humanity! Words that bind us all together,
Kin with all the seemingly small things that make up the Whole
Living, loving mess of it all.
I am one of the many who were deeply moved by Amanda Gorman’s poem “The Hill We Climb”. I was moved also by her delivery of it for the inauguration of the Biden/Harris presidency. So much of what she said, her metaphors, the cadence of it spoke to me and I found a week or so later this poem just springing up to greet hers! It has also been narrated beautifully on YouTube by my friend Lynette Stevenson. Here is the link: https://youtu.be/eN0ixqiFkjk
