Letter to Michelle Obama
We call upon you to run for President of the United States
for us to find
union
We need to affirm, in the person we choose in 2016
that your husband's election heralded a New America
from which we will not retreat
Upon that affirmation, we can begin to find our way out of our entrenchments
The need is urgent, for we have learned
. . . from Reconstruction: that we go back if we do not press ahead
. . . . . . .from shut-down: that gridlock serves no-one
. . . . . . . .from Lehmans: that main street and Congress must not be up for sale
. .from the war on drugs: that black lives matter and punishment does not pay
. . . . . .from the Pilgrims: that migrants are to be made welcome
. . . . . . . . . .from Katrina: that climate change is up to us
. . . . . . . . . . . . from 9/11: that we must reach young Islamic hearts
and
from the falls of the Kaiser, Hitler, Saigon, Communism, Baghdad, and Tripoli
that in the conflicts we face now
our foresight, prosperity, and unity count for as much as our military power
All this must light up in the eyes of the young if it is to live
Your Presidency would set them afire
here and across the world
as no other's could
because you are of them and you embody our new era as no others do
without personal ambition
but with
a genuine smile
a razor Harvard-Law mind
a head to call on the military and a heart not to do so in haste
and the flinty can-do backbone of your forebears' rise
from slavery through the Southside
to your most intimate grasp of what it takes to be a
New American President
So we call upon you to step out of the shadows and take up the fight
For you
as for all in our new land
it is not how late or where you start that counts
but how much you give and where you finish
Many have given their last full measure of devotion to that purpose
accepting, thereby, that despite exhaustion, doubt, and rejection
there is a calling for each that can be left to no other
For
few of the chosen get what they choose, or choose what they are chosen for
they rise to their tasks
Now is your time to rise
.
.
.