PROOF
by Cornelius Eady
So many incredible moments at Mamdani’s inauguration. Like this wonderful poem.
You have to imagine it.
Who said you were too dark?
Too Large, too Queer, Too Loud?
Who said you were too poor, too strange, too fat?
You have to imagine it.
Who said you must keep quiet?
Who heard your story then rolled their eyes?
Who tried to change your name to invisible?
You’ve got to imagine.
Who heard your name and refused to pronounce it?
Who checked their watch and said not now?
James Baldwin wrote the place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it.
New York, city of invention,
Roiling town, refresher
And re-newer,
New York, city of the real,
Where the canyons
Whisper in a hundred
Tongues,
New York,
Where your lucky self
Waits for your
Arrival,
Where there is always soil
For your root.
This is our time.
The taste of us, the spice of us, the hollers and the rhythms and the beats of us and the echo of our ancestors who made certain we know who we are.
City of insistence, city of resistance.
You have to imagine an army that wins without firing a bullet.
A joy that wears down the rock of no.
Up from insults up from blocked doors, up from trick bags, up from fear, up from shame, up form the way it was done before.
You have to imagine that space they said wasn’t yours.
That time they said you’d never own.
The invisible city lit on its way.
This moment is our proof.
And they sang BREAD AND ROSES!!! Here’s another gorgeous version.
How wonderful that our society has continued to the tradition of having poetry recited at inaugurals. Eady's "when hell freezes over" joke was just perfect. We all came together in that moment of laughter.
Esther, thank you offering all of us both the old and the new poetry that keeps us all weeping, laughing, and fighting.