Basking In The Election Afterglow

Very early Wednesday morning in Grant Park, Barack Obama gave us one last smile and wave before following a gaggle of beaming Bidens and Obamas out of the spotlight. And that was that.

For someone who'd begun to base his daily routine around the tracking polls (Zogby before bed and no lunch until Gallup at 1pm) it was hard to believe, but almost immediately, the great pageant that was the '08 campaign started to dissolve. The Muslim/terrorist/socialist chatter ceased. Gone to obscurity were Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers. Gone to a shrink was Ashley Todd--the troubled, race-baiting girl who carved a B in her own face. Joe the Plumber packed up his idiocy and headed off to a failed stint in the entertainment business. I thought of a passage from Shakepeare's The Tempest:

be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Well, now what?

(Much) Later that morning, Harry Smith interviewed celebrity/poet Maya Angelou on the CBS Early Show and asked her to read from her poem "Still I Rise." Angelou recited the following: "Into daybreak miraculously clear, I rise. Bringing the hopes that my ancestors gave, I am the hope and the dream of the slave." She added, "And so Harry Smith, we all rise." Yes, even bespectacled Harry Smith was rising. It was that kind of night.

Daybreak on Wednesday did seem "miraculously clear" to me (as has daybreak on every day since), and things that didn't seem possible just a week ago now suddenly seem possible. As Obama said in his victory speech:

"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.

"I promise you, we as a people will get there.

So I thought it fitting to collect, this week, some poems about hope. The German Romantic Friedrich Schiller described hope as such: (translated by Edward Bulwer Lytton)

...And it is not a dream of a fancy proud,
With a fool for its dull begetter;
There's a voice at the heart that proclaims aloud--
"We are born for a something better!"
And that Voice of the Heart, oh, ye may believe,
Will never the Hope of the Soul deceive!"

Even the morose Thomas Hardy, had his moments. Here's an excerpt from his "Song of Hope":

O sweet To-morrow! -
After to-day
There will away
This sense of sorrow.
Then let us borrow
Hope, for a gleaming
Soon will be streaming,
Dimmed by no gray -
No gray!

And perhaps no poet wrote better about the theme than Emily Dickinson. Here's "Hope Is the Thing with Feathers:"

"Hope" is the thing with feathers --
That perches in the soul --
And sings the tune without the words --
And never stops -- at all --

And sweetest -- in the Gale -- is heard --
And sore must be the storm --
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm --

I've heard it in the chillest land --
And on the strangest Sea --
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb -- of Me.

Hope is the thing with feathers. The Dow is still wobbling, the world is still dangerous, and Obama certainly has a great weight on his shoulders. He's going to need the wings.

Comments

[JerseyBob]

It is November 16 and I do not see your poetry post this weekend. I hope all is well with you. I enjoy your post and look forward to it.

[lioness39]

It is wonderful to know that our country is going to be led by not only a good man but one of exceptional intellect and reasoning. I am still on cloud nine. I watched Keith Olbermann's recap of the electoral process and smiled. We no longer have to fear the advent of an old man and his ignorant sidekick.

[schoolmaster]

How I wish that our foreign policy be dominated by one theme 'The Universal Love'

Wonder how the world without love would be?
Is'nt the love in all its facets the holding power? could be
Where is protection but for love?
The bond between mother and child, the fond between husbnd and wife
Between al creatures struggling, between the animate and the inanimate
To keep the balance between the planets, the stars and galaxies and all
Is'nt it the love of the creator, the universal love that binds
Wherefore the weapons of senseless distruction
When love can full well defend
Spread love that dispels hatred, that protects and perpetuates
Peace for higher existance.

[Elixion]

not very poetic but {yes we did}

[Invox]

Excerpts from "Democracy" by Leonard Cohen....

It's coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and of the worst.
It's here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.
It's here the family's broken
and it's here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.

[magicmary]

Is this new? Book or record?

[ScooterLiddy]

It is a beautiful song...

[JerseyBob]

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Obama's Quest for a Full Cup
by R. McCarthy

Come ride with me!
Carry me!
Take us there!
You are the only one I need.
Let's travel together for a short time and longer.
And we will come to an end and a beginning.
Will you take us to where we both want to go?

Too we have our history and instincts.
We will both find the way
around hazards left and right.
Let us go there together
and run there together.
Ah! The good we will do
from our House on a Hill!

Your white, black, brown, and yellow coats,
oh, the many coats you have,
define us as one when we ride together.
Not to stop, not to sleep.
Succor to come.

We are challenged not contained.
by our wide flat desserts and high mountain ranges,
and in this Great Home hosting us,
surrounded and one with our pastures, forests, and Statues of Liberty,
all of us embraced at once,
we finally will gambol together and rest a while.

And after, we will ride together a longer time
in pursuit of that full cup of happiness,
equity its wellspring.
Come ride with me!
Carry me!
Take us there!

[likeicare]

One generation plants the trees. Another enjoys the shade.

Ancient Chinese proverb.

[snarkopolitan]

AGAINST DESPAIR (Old Ralph-in-the-Wood)

A raven once an Acorn took
From Bashan's tallest stoutest tree;
He hid it by a limpid brook,
And liv'd another oak to see.

Thus Melancholy buries Hope,
Which Providence keeps still alive,
And bids us with afflictions cope,
And all anxiety survive.

--Christopher Smart

[tackometer]

Obama will build the scaffolding, we must build the wall.

Scaffolding

by Seamus Heaney

Masons, when they start upon a building,

Are careful to test out the scaffolding;

Make sure that planks won"t slip at busy points,

Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job"s done

Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be

Old bridges breaking between you and me

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall

Confident that we have built our wall.

[Humeaudenparker]

The Right Thing

by Theodore Roethke

Let others probe the mystery if they can.
Time-harried prisoners of Shall and Will"
The right thing happens to the happy man.

The bird flies out, the bird flies back again;
The hill becomes the valley, and is still;
Let others delve that mystery if they can.

God bless the roots!"Body and soul are one!
The small become the great, the great the small;
The right thing happens to the happy man.

Child of the dark, he can out leap the sun,
His being single, and that being all:
The right thing happens to the happy man.

Or he sits still, a solid figure when
The self-destructive shake the common wall;
Takes to himself what mystery he can,

And, praising change as the slow night comes on,
Wills what he would, surrendering his will
Till mystery is no more: No more he can.
The right thing happens to the happy man.

But if you want a hopeful *moment*, try this poem by Dorothy Parker.

Inventory

Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.

Four be the things I"d been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.

Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.

Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.