Richard Blanco’s poem “One Today” was read at the 2013 inauguration of President Barack Obama. The poem was written by Blanco knowing that he would be delivering it to the entire nation, which adds an interesting element to its context, but does not matter when reading and understanding the poem on its own merit.
The poem’s first line connects the reader with the pronoun ‘us,’ creating a sense of immediate communities. The first line begins, “The sun rose on us today” then defines the us with the sun “peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth / across the Great Plain.”
What Blanco has done in three lines, is identified the American people as his audience. He brings up the concept of story at the end of the first stanza with a story / told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.” This story then is what the theme of the poem is. It develops a narrative of the entire country. He paints a picture of “millions of faces in morning's mirrors,” i.e., the millions of Americans rising to go about their daily lives, which while different, share a common identity which includes distinct backgrounds, races, and in some cases language.
The theme of unity continues to arise. “One ground. Our ground,” begins the fourth stanza. He assigns a high value to each individual member of the American populace, “All of us as vital as one light,” the fifth stanza continues. Greetings in different language emphasize the differences within the American identity, “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.”
Despite the wide audience the poem is addressed to, the speaker has given us through a little, a lot about his background, by saying that his mother taught him “Buenos días” identifying himself as an American of Hispanic descent.
The poem, whose form mimics a speech, alludes to one of the most famous speeches, “ ‘I have a dream’ we keep dreaming’” he writes in the same stanza that united Americans to a national sorrow, “impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won't explain /the empty desks of twenty children marked absent /today, and forever.”
That stanza not only unites readers to a communal cause of sorrow, but sets the time period for the poem, shortly after news headlines wrung with tragedy due to a shooting in New Town, Connecticut.
He had brought up the theme of students earlier, under a happier tone. My personal favorite phrase in the poem is his describing school buses as pencil yellow. The yellow pencils such a cutting symbol of students, vivid and relevant and of near universal understanding.
The poem ends casting Americans all heading home, facing stars of “hope.” “Waiting, for us to map it, / waiting for us to name it—together.” Together is a good note to send on, and one that sums up the theme of the poem. It is about togetherness despite differences. The poem is free-verse, but flows through vivid imagery to a conclusion which builds off the premise immediately introduced in the opening stanza.
"One Today"
One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,peeking over the Smokies, greeting the facesof the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truthacross the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a storytold 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 rainbowsbegging 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 didfor 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 explainthe empty desks of twenty children marked absenttoday, and forever. Many prayers, but one lightbreathing color into stained glass windows,life into the faces of bronze statues, warmthonto the steps of our museums and park benches as mothers watch children slide into the day.
One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalkof corn, every head of wheat sown by sweatand hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmillsin deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, handsdigging trenches, routing pipes and cables, handsas worn as my father's cutting sugarcaneso my brother and I could have books and shoes.
The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plainsmingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear itthrough the day's gorgeous din of honking cabs,buses launching down avenues, the symphonyof 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 openfor each other all day, saying: hello, shalom,buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos díasin the language my mother taught me—in every languagespoken into one wind carrying our liveswithout prejudice, as these words break from my lips.
One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimedtheir majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado workedtheir way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more reportfor the boss on time, stitching another woundor uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,or the last floor on the Freedom Towerjutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.
One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyestired from work: some days guessing at the weatherof our lives, some days giving thanks for a lovethat loves you back, sometimes praising a motherwho knew how to give, or forgiving a fatherwho couldn't give what you wanted.
We head home: through the gloss of rain or weightof snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,always under one sky, our sky. And always one moonlike a silent drum tapping on every rooftopand every window, of one country—all of us—facing the starshope—a new constellationwaiting for us to map it,waiting for us to name it—together.
