From Wikipedia
What Do They Recall?
You have to wonder looking in to this photograph with one First Lady
Looking so clearly out, with another so clearly looking inward
What do they recall, why can they alone understand yet never say to us, the people,
What is it to have been that symbolic dress across the dance floor?
One here had to hold the day a shot brought her man closer to an astrologer's prediction
She had used this shield to forestall the idiot with a weapon these women all saw in the dead of night.
Another couldn't attend this luncheon on that grass, it says here, to share her silenced thoughts
Preparing instead to leave this world and join the round table she served and visioned.
How would you chat about Shuttles that burst into flames?
Or courses you oversaw while the men strode the stage proclaiming to them their love?
Among her wildflowers one sought a bluebell to sooth
The tortured thoughts of a man who in the end was only a man
That wanted to be loved and seen for what he accomplished.
All know the harsh edge of defeat and loss, the price of national pride, the times
Of their lives ever bringing to them a man to nourish again, to support as America sagged, bragged,
Buried, worshiped, protected, retracted, seized, soared, funded and fought,
Holding onto time as our national garment
These women wearing the cotton, ruffle, satin and pearl cloth of many colors
Gathering together to share courses with lettuce and salmon
Server and silver, nodding to one another in silent realization that they
Dress the national table, Ladies all First to the hand of Power
Balance we sought there, in the long dark night and glorious dawn.
Ode To The Common Moment
We sat in our little chairs coloring a commemorative book
On the Inauguration and chatted about
History. Capital H, I said. I reminded them of the respect we were going to show with
Standing and watching as an Oath was uttered and a hand placed
On a piece of history, but even I broke the silences with sobbing, sitting and the
Requests to be the one to get me the teacher tissue was bigger than that.
One first grader, who will one day be a great American boy,
Decided to say that his teacher cries like this sometimes as the kids cheered the
Cello they knew as Yoyo Ma from cello music I brought in December and happily they knew the Aretha too.
One commenting on this Queen of Soul. "Good job," he said quietly.
As I sat and watched, filming, something passed before my eyes just like the parade bringing the sounds
Of the march of time. Swiftly passing me by this moment of their times.
A wall of invisible proportion fell as silently as the Fruit Loops I brought to celebrate dropped all the day. Everywhere.
My class got to honor their new President by watching this day, and stung leis of cereal to munch and give them
Things to do while watching their television and teacher.
These kids look and listen as we read, really for the first time of this man's world, I didn't know,
Of this President's own personal history, of a disappearing Dad, a mom who came and went
Fighting for the poor, of grandparents that held the center
Of Kansas corn and Illinois mid-western goodness. They nod
And chat and grab one another asking things like
"When will he come to see us today?" And telling me of their
Mom who met him probably over at dinner last night with Obama turning up
To take them to Chucky Cheese and help one study the spelling list.
So I shared my drawing and we drew him, trying to take on the difficult task
Of representing a President larger than life on faulty construction paper
Fading under our crayolas, the ones they say will no llonger be supplied
The end result of the budget crisis is the collapse of the educational chances of finding a way out of poverty in rooms full of equity.
I watch the new limo and think briefly about the danger of a man and wife outside
Walking a parade route, getting mad at myself for such thoughts
That sit brewing in my background.
We've seen hope come and go, but this is not in the mind of these little happy 6 year olds
No, today they are coloring and drawing, doing word searches and writing to the concept of a nation
For All, made of immigrants like they mostly are
That is led by a President that looks confortable wihin the smile he is wearing
As they cheer and yell watching this day in their little chairs.
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