One Today, Richard Blanco

l i g h t ,

One

waking up rooftops,

under each one,

a story

silent

told by our

gestures

moving behind windows

My face,

your face,

millions of faces

TRUTH

spreading a simple across the Great Plains,

in morning's mirrors,

peeking over the Smokies,

One ground. Our ground,

rooting us to every stalk of corn,

every head of wheat sown by sweat and hands,

hands gleaning coal or planting windmills in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm,

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains mingled by one wind - our breath.

hands digging trenches, routing pipes and cables,

B R E A T H E.

CHARGING

Hear it through the day's gorgeous din of honking cabs,

then

buses launching down avenues,

hands as worn as my father's cutting sugarcane so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

Many prayers, but one light

the symphony of footsteps,

guitars,

and screeching subways,

breathing color into stained glass windows,

the unexpected songbird on your clothes line.

across the Rockies.

life onto the faces of bronze statues,

warmth onto the steps of our museums and park benches

as mothers watch their children slide into the day.

the "I have a dream" we keep dreaming,

squeaky playground swings,

trains whistling,

Hear:

or whispers across café tables,

or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won't explain the empty desks of twenty children marked absent today, and forever.

the doors we open for each other all day, saying:

Hear:

hello/

namaste/

buon giorno/

or buenos días

shalom,

howdy/

in the language my mother taught me - in every language spoken into one wind carrying our lives without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,

One sky:

since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked their way to the sea.

the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:

Thank the work of our hands: weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report for the boss on time, stitching another wound or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait, or the last floor on the Freedom Tower jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

equations to solve,

history to question,

or atoms imagined,

One sky,

toward which we sometimes lift our eyes tired from work:

some days guessing at the weather of our lives,

some days giving thanks for a love that loves you back,

sometimes praising a mother who knew how to give,

or forgiving a father who couldn't give what you wanted.

We head home:

through the gloss of rain or weight of snow,

or the plum blush of dusk,

but always - home,

always under one sky, our sky.

And always one moon like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop and every window,

of one country - all of us - facing the stars

hope - a new constellation

waiting for us to map it,

waiting for us to name it -

together

on our way to

clean tables,

read ledgers,

each one yawning to life,

or save lives -

to teach geometry,

Works Cited:

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Sunrise.

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so I could write this poem.

i

o

g

n

d

e

c

s

e

r

c

Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper -

pencil-yellow school buses,

milk,

bricks

the rhythm of traffic lights,

or

fruit stands:

teeming over highways alongside us,

apples,

into our day:

limes,

and oranges

arrayed like rainbows

greeting the faces of the Great Lakes,

begging our praise.

One Today, Richard Blanco

One sun rose on us today,

kindled

over our shores,