Patrick Semansky, Pool / AP
American poet Amanda Gorman reads a poem during the 59th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021.
Sunday, Jan. 24, 2021 | 2 a.m.
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I can breathe.
I know what those words mean today. And in a much broader context, our entire country breathed a huge sigh of relief this past Wednesday when Joseph R. Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States. With the ability to breathe comes the opportunity to pursue a better life — in all of its manifestations.
I can dream.
The United States was created by, built by, sustained by and is motivated by Americans who can dream of a better future — and who can communicate those dreams in a way that motivates all of us to make them real.
And I can hope.
Even though hope is not a strategy — that’s what my mother taught me — it is that essential quality that allows each of us to work for better tomorrows.
The inauguration of President Joseph R. Biden on Jan. 20, 2021, allowed an overwhelming majority of Americans to breathe easier. Much easier. It allowed each of us — regardless of how we voted — to dream a little differently but to dream nonetheless.
And for most of us, it brought a sense of hope that the rancor we have felt daily, the division that has infected us and the violence that has defined us, while it will forever be a stain on our history, is something that we will overcome.
And that allows us all to hope that President Biden’s vision for a more unified country, for people pulling together, for neighbors helping neighbors, and for those entrusted to run our government working in a way that promotes a more perfect union, will come to pass.
While I found Biden’s entire Inaugural Day an inspiration, there were two other people who jumped out front and center when it came to telling the story about an America on the brink of better days.
Those two participants — one willingly and one not so much — are Amanda Gorman and Robert S. Duncanson.
In Amanda Gorman, the entire world saw a 22-year-old poet — the youngest ever to read at an inauguration — recite the words of a most powerful poem called “The Hill We Climb.”
She wrote it and recited it in a way that those who witnessed her performance can never forget and will always remember as we follow what will be her incredible future yet to be lived.
The poem starts:
When the day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
And it ends:
Our people diverse and beautiful will emerge battered and beautiful.
When day comes, we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid.
The new dawn balloons as we free it.
For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we are brave enough to be it.
And the words and message in between are worth every American’s time and effort to read.
Amanda’s story is America’s story. Her words should be America’s dream because they give hope that the newest generations have what it takes to make this union ever more perfect.
On the other end of the chronological scale is Mr. Duncanson. Had he lived, he would be 200 years old this year.
Robert Duncanson was an American landscapist in the 19th century. His painting, “Landscape with Rainbow” was a gift at a ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda that Dr. Jill Biden picked out for Sen. Roy Blunt to present to the president.
It is a landscape picture painted in 1859 of a beautiful part of America, punctuated by a huge rainbow arcing to the sky. As Dr. Biden explained at the ceremony when asked why she picked that particular painting, “I like the rainbow, good things to follow.”
To which Sen. Blunt, a Republican from Missouri, responded, “Let’s hope.”
Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you, the artist was a black man living in this country at the height of pre-Civil War America. He came from a family of freed slaves.
And, yet, his art punctuated the beauty of America and the dream of a better tomorrow.
It is hard to have watched the inauguration without feeling deeply what the artist, Robert S. Duncanson, dreamed and what the poet, Amanda Gorman, so beautifully wrote and delivered to the country.
Anyone who hasn’t heard President Biden’s speech and Amanda Gorman’s extraordinary words, and viewed the hopes and dreams of a Black artist in pre-Civil War America should do so — soon.
It will give almost every American the motivation to do better, to be better and to work harder toward the unity our president so earnestly hopes the United States can achieve.
In the bipartisan words of first lady Jill Biden and Republican Sen. Roy Blunt: “Good things to follow. … Let’s hope.”
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun.
