We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it. It’s the past we step into, and how we repair it. Because being American is more than a pride we inherit. That is the promise promise to glade, the hill we climb. If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade. Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid. Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division. we tried, that will forever be tied together victorious. That even as we hurt, we hoped, that even as we tired. Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true. We seek harm to none, and harmony for all. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We are striving to forge our union with purpose, to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man. But that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine. 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.

Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished. And yet the dawn is hours before we knew it. In the norms and notions of what just is, isn’t always justice. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace. When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade the loss? The loss we carry asea we must wade. Transcript The Poet Amanda Gorman Says America Can Be the ‘Light’ It Needs Amanda Gorman, a 22-year-old poet, recited her poem “The Hill We Climb” at President Biden’s inauguration.

The hill we climb gorman