Elizabeth Alexander – Equinox
…her awareness of history, especially African-American history, as well as her personal friendship with the Obamas, made her a natural choice as President Obama’s inaugural poet.
Alexander became only the fourth poet ever asked to read at a presidential inauguration, and her poem, “Praise Song for the Day” was heard and watched by billions worldwide. From Poetry Foundation
Now is the time of year when bees are wild
and eccentric. They fly fast and in cramped
loop-de-loops, dive-bomb clusters of conversants
in the bright, late-September out-of-doors.
I have found their dried husks in my clothes.
They are dervishes because they are dying,
one last sting, a warm place to squeeze
a drop of venom or of honey.
After the stroke we thought would be her last
my grandmother came back, reared back and slapped
a nurse across the face. Then she stood up,
walked outside, and lay down in the snow.
Two years later there is no other way
to say, we are waiting. She is silent, light
as an empty hive, and she is breathing.
