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. If we merge mercy with might and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change, our children's birth right. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation.īecause we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation.

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 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. For while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated. We've seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it, would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.Īnd this effort very nearly succeeded. It's the past we stepped into and how we repair it. If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won't lighten 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. Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid. That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious, not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division. Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true, that even as we grieved, we grew. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another We seek harm to none and harmony for all. We close the divide because we know to put our future first. And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us but what stands before us. We are striving to forge our union with purpose, to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man. 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.Īnd yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn't mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.

And yet the dawn is hours before we knew it, somehow we do it, somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn't broken but simply unfinished. We've learned that quiet isn't always peace and the norms and notions of what just is, isn't always justice. 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.

Amanda gorman's poem the hill we climb