Call Us What We Carry

by Amanda Gorman

By Hello, we mean: Let us not say goodbye again.

It will be a blessing if our children Never fully grasp what It took to come to this.

When has horror not been our heirloom.

Every day we are learning How to live with essence, not ease. How to move with haste, never hate. How to leave this pain that is beyond us Behind us. Just like a skill or any art, We cannot possess hope without practicing it. It is the most fundamental craft we demand of ourselves.

Often we cannot change Without someone in us dying. * * *

To tell the truth, then, is to risk being remembered by its fiction.

It’s said that ignorance is bliss. Ignorance is this: a vine that sneaks up a tree, killing not by poison, but by blocking out its light.

So, on this meaningful morn, we mourn & we mend. Like light, we can’t be broken, even when we bend.

Loss is the cost of loving,