This Day: The inauguration of Barack Obama

The recent inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States was, for many of us, an exciting day.

Whether to restore confidence in our greatest ally, or for progress on the climate change agenda, or the charismatic leadership to pull the world out of recession, I haven’t met anyone who feels anything other than a sense of great hope and expectation that he will prove a force for positive action and change.

Wayne Visser, author, poet, academic and CEO of CSR International, wrote this poem on 20th January 2009.

This day
Is not just any day
It is a day of days
A day of a lifetime
An epoch making day
At a time that cries out
For new beginnings

This day
Is a watershed day
A day that separates
Yesterday from today
And today from tomorrow
On a mindless march of days
That needed breaking

This day
Is a day to be marked
As something remarkable
A day to be celebrated
As something joyful
A day to be remembered
As something historic

This day
Is a tribute to the past
With its sacrifices of so many
A blessing for the present
Amidst looming clouds of despair
And a vision for the future
Welcomed with an open hand

This day
Is not the struggle’s end
But the journey’s beginning
It is not the death of prejudice
But the life of possibility
It is not the end of nights
But the start of days

This day
Is not so much a forging ahead
As a long overdue catching up
With changes at last
That begin to give life
To time-honoured ideals
And flickering hopes

This day
Is the day of coming together
When power meets responsibility
And rhetoric meets action
It is the day of empowerment
When the voiceless are heard
And the marginal become mainstream

This day
Is the day of reconciliation
When the past is laid to rest
And the future is awakening
It is the day of prodigals
When the lost find their way home
And a nation rejoins the world

Wayne Visser, 20 January 2009