On walking forward in that light

Introducing a spring series on Elizabeth Alexander's "Praise Song for the Day"

Hello, friends. I hope spring is treating you well so far, or that you’re at least seeing signs of new life. Here in Boston, we’ve got budding cherry trees, softly blowsy magnolias, bright pops of crayon-yellow daffodils, and robins that are singing like they invented birdsong. (Along with—some days—raw grey winds and spitting rain. This is spring, the all of it, as I keep trying to remind myself.)

Back in February, I invited all of you into a five-week series exploring Wendell Berry’s poem “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” as a sacred text for this chaotic national moment. I loved your comments, and I loved exploring Berry’s poetry alongside you, and considering what it might teach us about how to act and how to be, right now.

Today, I’m inviting you to explore another poem with me this spring: Elizabeth Alexander’s “Praise Song for the Day.”

Alexander wrote this poem for Inauguration Day 2009, and read it aloud (in a fabulous red coat) on a crisp, cold morning in Washington, D.C. Eight years later, I heard novelist Alexander Chee read it aloud on the steps of the New York Public Library, and now, after another eight (turbulent) years, I want to dive into it alongside all of you.

As the poet herself might say, let’s begin:

---

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other's
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

---

I love the ordinariness of this poem, the way Alexander begins on a day like any other day: we are all going about our business, on our way to work and school, passing each other on the sidewalk or the street. (Sometimes I picture us as the animals in Richard Scarry’s Busytown, the pigs and cats and rabbits bustling about their appointed tasks.) Alexander is, in the words of poet Pádraig Ó Tuama, “saying hello to here.” Here she is; here I am; here we are, in the midst of the chaos and bustle and life.

In my neighborhood of Eastie, I pass runners, schoolchildren, dog walkers, retirees, fellow workers and delivery people, on my morning run or my walk to work. I nod to some, wave at others, but often wish more people would smile and say hello. That’s my Texas upbringing talking: a way of being I can’t abandon, even after fifteen years (this summer) in Boston.

I love it when I run into neighbors I know: a coworker, a yoga teacher, a fellow volunteer from the community garden. I crave that brief exchange of humanity when someone else meets my eyes. I believe we all need to see each other, and be seen; not for any sort of fame or popularity, but as a simple act of recognition: we are human, and we are here.

All about us is noise, Alexander admits. This is, perhaps, not a value judgment; she’s simply stating a fact. We live in a noisy, busy world, full of “thorn and din”—the headlines scream, the images flash by, the online videos flicker and spark. We can get tangled in the noise if we’re not careful; the word “bramble” vividly calls to mind the scratchy blackberry vines on my grandparents’ old farm in rural Ohio.

And yet, even amid this noise, each one of our ancestors—no matter their age or closeness or moral character—lives on within us, “on our tongues.”

We all carry our histories, known and unknown, inside us; we are each a mosaic, made up of our own selves and also pieces of everyone who has come before us. I carry my grandfathers: both hardworking, faithful Midwestern men who loved big breakfasts and plaid shirts and their grandchildren. I carry the cousin who died too young, the great-grandmothers I never met and the ones I vaguely remember; I carry the ancestors whose stories I may never know, but whose actions and attitudes shape me nonetheless, even now.

I love Alexander’s third stanza, about patching and repair. It speaks to the “make do and mend” ethos that’s so common in the wartime fiction I love. But it also highlights the value of small, humble tasks: patching a hole, darning a tire, choosing to care for things (and people) instead of throwing them away or replacing them.

My grandmother and aunt taught me to sew when I was young. I am no seamstress, but I mend my clothes when I can, both because I want to keep wearing them (the ones with holes are often my favorites) and as a stand against our all-brand-new, fast-fashion, disposable society. I believe there’s value in tending to what we have, and I think “repairing the things in need of repair” extends into the realm of the soul, too.

I love, too, this fourth stanza about making music, especially since I spend my days at ZUMIX, where our young people are constantly making music: with guitar, drums, trumpet, voice, or sometimes simply with whatever’s lying around. Even the dogs sometimes join in, and though it’s often a (cacophonous) joyful noise, just as often it’s downright beautiful.

Most of all, we make music in community, and we use what we have to lift our voices.

This last idea seems especially important in this national moment, when the top federal officials are doing their level best to silence and shout down the voices of ordinary people, especially noncitizens and immigrants.

I joined a peaceful protest last Saturday here in Boston, where thousands of people (and a brass band) showed up to say we want a country that cares for its own. And “its own” means all of us: everyone who is “going about their business” in this land, everyone trying to make music, everyone who is part of this story.

That’s all for now, y’all – meet me back here next week for our close reading of the next few stanzas. Meanwhile, I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback in the comments.

---