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"Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen."
Amen.
The words of Reverend Joseph E. Lowery in his delivery of the benediction at the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama, the 44th President of our United States of America.
(AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq) A US soldier observes a moment of silence during the inauguration of Barack Obama, at the US camp Phoenix base in Kabul, Afghanistan on Tuesday Jan. 20, 2009.
Strange days these. Sifting through the weeks since the Election, I cannot put my finger on this mood that has settled on me. It's a loose-lashed assembly. The final dregs of my despair at the wreckage of the world, the ashes of our collective bankruptcy, all the shards of annihilation pieced together into an empty bowl, open to any sweetness, buoyed up and riding an illogical elation and hopefulness. After the climax of Obama's win, I haven't wanted to keep my head in politics at all lately. The fine-toothed speculations, endless doubts and dire predictions, the picking of nits. The last machinations of business as usual. It all exhausts me. I'm wrung out and fragile and too spent to keep my vigilance. So I've abandoned it. I've become the empty pieced-together bowl. Hungry for life, beauty, warmth, vitality, sap, joy. Tomorrow begins a fresh page, a new leaf, turning, accumulating, dancing together, a multitude, like a forest of trees...and I want to say yes for a change.
Photo: Combust by Binh Danh- chlorophyll print and resin- from his current show at Haines Gallery The Eclipse of Angkor.
"Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen."
