The
Hill We Climb: Amanda Gorman poem
Amanda Gorman
Mr President, Dr Biden, Madam Vice-President, Mr Emhoff,
Americans and the world,
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. In the norms
and notions of what just is isn’t always justice. And yet, the dawn is ours
before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a
nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished. We, the successors of a
country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised
by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself
reciting for one.
And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that
doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving
to forge our union with purpose. To compose a country committed to all
cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man. And so we lift our gazes
not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide
because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences
aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We
seek harm to none and harmony for all. Let the globe, if nothing else, say this
is true. That even as we grieved, we grew. That even as we hurt, we hoped. That
even as we tired, we tried that we’ll forever be tied together victorious. Not
because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow
division.
Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under
their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid. If we’re to live
up to her own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges
we’ve made. That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb if only we dare. Because
being American is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and
how we repair it. We’ve seen a forest that would shatter our nation rather than
share it. Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. And this
effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be
permanently defeated. In this truth, in this faith we trust for while we have
our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just
redemption. We feared it at its inception. We did not feel prepared to be the
heirs of such a terrifying hour, but within it, we found the power to author a
new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves so while once we asked,
how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe? Now we assert, how could
catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was but move to what shall be a
country that is bruised, but whole, benevolent, but bold, fierce, and free. We
will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our
inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation. Our
blunders become their burdens. But one thing is certain. If we merge mercy with
might and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our
children’s birthright.
So let us leave behind a country better than one we were left
with. Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest we will raise this wounded
world into a wondrous one. We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west.
We will rise from the wind-swept north-east where our forefathers first
realized revolution. We will rise from the Lake Rim cities of the midwestern
states. We will rise from the sun-baked south. We will rebuild, reconcile and
recover in every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge battered and beautiful.
When day comes, we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid.
The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light. If only we’re
brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.