Inaugural poetry: Blue Janus

Our son was born in ninety-three

Twentieth day of Janus' month

The god of turns, transition, change.

The light poles outside the window

Picked out the drama of falling rain,

A night that never turned to snow.

Fluorescents flickered in the hospital room

And the glow from our new child

Radiated in my brightening heart.

 

Our son was born in ninety-three

Twentieth day of Janus' month

The god of turns, transition, change.

 

The priest and his wife came with pizza

We never saw them socially

Though we were blessed as first

To eat with them when they came to town--

Sizzling beef hot pot with a carpenter priest

Who moved to Kyoto and joined houses.

 

Our son was born in ninety-three

Twentieth day of Janus' month

The god of turns, transition, change.

 

I didn't watch that swearing in

With the right hand raised and the Bible

I had a prior engagement

That inaugurated our new life.

Now sixteen, my son says The Vote

When I chant at him Barack.

 

Our son was born in ninety-three

Twentieth day of Janus' month

The god of turns, transition, change.

 

When I apologize for my

generation, my millennial child shrugs.

His Facebook friends are black and white

As we always knew they'd be.

And today, with Martin, we rejoice.

Who knew that black and white

 

Make not gray but blue?

Comments

[loafingcactus]

I liked your poem, except for the closing line which seems partisan and not in keeping with the occassion. It is also a little awkward, given that blue not only has political significance but is the color of facebook, y'know?

Make not grey but _________. There has to be another option.

I do like the facebook black and white... not just skin color, but it made me think of an era that is beyond the black and white photographs of an old-fashioned paper yearbook.

[DF]

Maybe red, white, and blue. But then you've still got white.

I was undecided about the blue for a while, but in the end I thought it was a good thing to remember that Democrats won this one. I don't think the whole poem succeeded, but I was still working on it and then inauguration came up. I don't know that more time would've made it better. Tougher than it looked to write this.