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The inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Jan. 20 was, we hope, a new beginning for a nation traumatized by the pandemic and tattered after four years of the Trump regime. That hope was best embodied by the youngest speaker in the morning鈥檚 program, 22-year-old Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, who read her inaugural poem, 鈥淭he Hill We Climb.鈥� Gorman finished her poem the night after White supremacists invaded the Capitol building as part of a broader attempt to undermine the presidential election and American democracy.

In this transcript from her reading at the inauguration, Gorman evokes the transatlantic slave trade and acknowledges the violent American history we have yet to overcome鈥斺��the loss we carry, a sea we must wade … the belly of the beast.鈥� She names our current conflict with 鈥渁 force that would shatter our nation rather than share it,鈥� but summons up images of a nation stepping out of the shadows into dawn. She leaves us with the imperative to find courage, and 鈥渢o leave behind a country better than the one we were left.鈥�

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鈥檝e braved the belly of the beast.
We鈥檝e learned that quiet isn鈥檛 always peace,
and the norms and notions of what 鈥渏ust鈥� is isn鈥檛 always justice.
And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow we do it.
Somehow we鈥檝e weathered and witnessed a nation that isn鈥檛 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鈥檛 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鈥檒l 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鈥檙e to live up to our own time, then victory won鈥檛 lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we鈥檝e made.
That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare.
It鈥檚 because being American is more than a pride we inherit.
It鈥檚 the past we step into and how we repair it.
We鈥檝e seen a force 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, 鈥楬ow could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?鈥� now we assert, 鈥楬ow could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?鈥�

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鈥檚 birthright.

So let us leave behind a country better than the 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 golden hills of the West.
We will rise from the wind-swept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution.
We will rise from the lake-rimmed 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鈥檙e brave enough to see it.
If only we鈥檙e brave enough to be it.

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