“One Today”

One sun rose on us today, kin­dled over our shores,
peek­ing over the Smok­ies, greet­ing the faces
of the Great Lakes, spread­ing a sim­ple truth
across the Great Plains, then charg­ing across the Rock­ies.
One light, wak­ing up rooftops, under each one, a story
told by our silent ges­tures mov­ing behind windows.

My face, your face, mil­lions of faces in morning’s mir­rors,
each one yawn­ing to life, crescen­do­ing into our day:
pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traf­fic lights,
fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rain­bows
beg­ging our praise. Sil­ver trucks heavy with oil or paper—
bricks or milk, teem­ing over high­ways along­side us,
on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives—
to teach geom­e­try, or ring-up gro­ceries as my mother did
for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,
the same light on black­boards with lessons for the day:
equa­tions to solve, his­tory to ques­tion, or atoms imag­ined,
the “I have a dream” we keep dream­ing,
or the impos­si­ble vocab­u­lary of sor­row that won’t explain
the empty desks of twenty chil­dren marked absent
today, and for­ever. Many prayers, but one light
breath­ing color into stained glass win­dows,
life into the faces of bronze stat­ues, warmth
onto the steps of our muse­ums and park benches
as moth­ers watch chil­dren slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, root­ing us to every stalk
of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat
and hands, hands glean­ing coal or plant­ing wind­mills
in deserts and hill­tops that keep us warm, hands
dig­ging trenches, rout­ing pipes and cables, hands
as worn as my father’s cut­ting sug­ar­cane
so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains
min­gled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it
through the day’s gor­geous din of honk­ing cabs,
buses launch­ing down avenues, the sym­phony
of foot­steps, gui­tars, and screech­ing sub­ways,
the unex­pected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky play­ground swings, trains whistling,
or whis­pers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open
for each other all day, say­ing: hello, shalom,
buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos días
in the lan­guage my mother taught me—in every lan­guage
spo­ken into one wind car­ry­ing our lives
with­out prej­u­dice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachi­ans and Sier­ras claimed
their majesty, and the Mis­sis­sippi and Col­orado worked
their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:
weav­ing steel into bridges, fin­ish­ing one more report
for the boss on time, stitch­ing another wound
or uni­form, the first brush stroke on a por­trait,
or the last floor on the Free­dom Tower
jut­ting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we some­times lift our eyes
tired from work: some days guess­ing at the weather
of our lives, some days giv­ing thanks for a love
that loves you back, some­times prais­ing a mother
who knew how to give, or for­giv­ing a father
who couldn’t give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,
always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon
like a silent drum tap­ping on every rooftop
and every win­dow, of one country—all of us—
fac­ing the stars
hope—a new con­stel­la­tion
wait­ing for us to map it,
wait­ing for us to name it—together.