This poem & its pain are both imagined & as real as we are. That is to say, through some fictions we find fact; in some fantasies we discover ourselv… - Amanda Gorman

Grief, like glass, can be both a mirror & a window, enabling us to look both in & out, then & now & how. In other words, we become a window pain. Only somewhere in loss do we find the grace to gaze up & out of ourselves.

Through some fictions we find fact; in some fantasies we discover ourselves & then some. Even without living it, a memory can live on in us. The past is never gone, just not yet found.

through some fictions we find fact; in some fantasies we discover ourselves & then some.

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 will forever be tied together victorious. Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.

our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid

Let no one again
Have to begin, love, or end, alone.