BlissFullU

A lot of us couldn’t agree on a lot of things this year. If there is anything we could agree on, maybe it would be that a 22-year-old black female poet was the surprise hit of the 2021 Inauguration. Well, it wasn’t a surprise to me, but prior to Amanda Gorman’s appearance at the Inaugration, most people in this country probably didn’t even know that there was a Youth Poet Laureate, let alone how FABULOUS Amanda Gorman is. I fully expected her to be a smash, and I’m so glad I got to be right about THAT at least. (If you aren’t familiar with Amanda Gorman, you can read my original post at: https://blissfullu.com/2021/01/28/inauguration-poetic-follow-up-week-1-amanda-gorman-makes-poetry-hot-again/).

There has been a lot of sad and tough and disappointing stuff this year. But Amanda and her poetry have been a shining light of hope and inspiration through it all. So it seems like the best way to close out the year is by reading a poem Gorman released recently as a New Years Poem for 2022. Enjoy!

New Day’s Lyric

May this be the day
We come together.
Mourning, we come to mend,
Withered, we come to weather,
Torn, we come to tend,
Battered, we come to better.
Tethered by this year of yearning,
We are learning
That though we weren’t ready for this,
We have been readied by it.
We steadily vow that no matter
How we are weighed down,
We must always pave a way forward.

This hope is our door, our portal.
Even if we never get back to normal,
Someday we can venture beyond it,
To leave the known and take the first steps.
So let us not return to what was normal,
But reach toward what is next.

What was cursed, we will cure.
What was plagued, we will prove pure.
Where we tend to argue, we will try to agree,
Those fortunes we forswore, now the future we foresee,
Where we weren’t aware, we’re now awake;
Those moments we missed
Are now these moments we make,
The moments we meet,
And our hearts, once all together beaten,
Now all together beat.

Come, look up with kindness yet,
For even solace can be sourced from sorrow.
We remember, not just for the sake of yesterday,
But to take on tomorrow.

We heed this old spirit,
In a new day’s lyric,
In our hearts, we hear it:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
Be bold, sang Time this year,
Be bold, sang Time,
For when you honor yesterday,
Tomorrow ye will find.
Know what we’ve fought
Need not be forgotten nor for none.
It defines us, binds us as one,
Come over, join this day just begun.
For wherever we come together,
We will forever overcome.

© Amanda Gorman, 2021. All rights reserved.