… to be only a small part of a needed solution (and I want to be bigger)
Speaking, sparkling, skinny-ing
That small person with a big message
I am a big person with a small message,
a tiny question:
What are these things I take for granted each day,
the ones that make | me?
Can I see them? Note them? Remark?
(are they remarkable?)
Appreciate their qualities?
Decide on another
tiny thing, or two,
to make me newly?
What if I could hear them all, and the strings strung
from each tiny action, the repeat coffee, the way of walking, the sphere of thought?
What if, I chose differently
and broke that old tune?
The gong, the strum, made from little bumps,
that become a “one”?
Would I choose a new way,
the new song to be made?
Would I be discordant?
Or a smattering of sounds and movements from influencers, and ads, and avoided anxieties?
Would I instead be a symphony?
A big, broad melody
with thousands of surrounding undertones:
A conductor in bliss?
Would the audience be enraptured with genius?
Would I sing that song every day
thereafter? Or have my ear to the ground
to track the silent animal of that moment?
The animal that walks me, a certain way, today,
The one that makes tiny murmers, and hosts my thoughts, and has
its world host a song along.
Would I be?
-EMM 1/20/2021
This poem is written with deep respect, admiration and self-reflection inspired by Amanda Gorman, who read her Inaugural Poem: The Hill We Climb on 1/20/2021