Making Mountains As We Run by Amanda Gorman How would we read the Harvard arms, If we took another look? The letters of veritas, Tossed across Three open books, Like eight simple seeds? I’d saywe can read this creed Not just in the words, but in the deeds Of the man we celebrate today. A […]

The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman 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. We’ve braved the belly of the beast, We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what just is isn’t […]

Inaugural by Jericho Brown We were told that it is dangerous to touch And yet we journeyed here, where what we believe Meets what must be done. You want to see, in spite Of my mask, my face. We imagine, in time Of disease, our grandmothers Whole. We imagine an impossible America and call one […]

It Starts with Tenderness by Ellen Steinbaum The helping hand cupping the elbow that we shake off as if we didn’t notice, as if we felt no sting. The children—adult now, middle-aged– take bundles from our hands,/solicitous in unburdening, and—- like us/calibrating, sounding for decay. Before their visits we clear the house of the crimes […]

Leaning In by Sue Ellen Thompson Sometimes, in the middle of a crowded store on a Saturday afternoon, my husband will rest his hand on my neck, or on the soft flesh belted at my waist, and pull me to him. I understand his question: Why are we so fortunate when all around us, friends […]

A Donation of Shoes by Ted Kooser They’re on their way to Goodwill in Destiny’s old cardboard carton, the flaps folded inside, lending its scuffed shoulders a look of authority, the box knowing the route, the shoes badly lost and confused, their toes starting in every direction at once, clambering over each other, laces entangled—wingtip, […]

Matins Louise Gluck You want to know how I spend my time? I walk the front lawn, pretending to be weeding. You ought to know I’m never weeding, on my knees, pulling clumps of clover from the flower beds: in fact I’m looking for courage, for some evidence my life will change, though it takes […]

For What Binds Us by Jane Hirshfield There are names for what binds us: strong forces, weak forces. Look around, you can see them: the skin that forms in a half-empty cup, nails rusting into the places they join, joints dovetailed on their own weight. The way things stay so solidly wherever they’ve been set […]

Honda Pavarotti by Tony Hoagland I’m driving on the dark highway when the opera singer on the radio opens his great mouth and the whole car plunges down the canyon of his throat. So the night becomes an aria of stars and exit signs as I steer through the galleries of one dilated Italian syllable […]

“Everything is Going to be All Right” Derek Mahon How should I not be glad to contemplate the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window and a high tide reflected on the ceiling? There will be dying, there will be dying, but there is no need to go into that. The poems flow from the hand […]