upon your inauguration...
By Charles L. Riccillo
Upon this eve inaugural,
come, Barack, now to recall,
and with all your being, bring forth here
clearest, fearless calm resolve -
your origin of awesome name, "to praise"
in it implicit,
a heart and soul a you wield with mind,
to mend a country
make it whole again.
We, fellow honest citizens,
need none of artifice, or hollow witticisms -
no hollow mimicry will this day sustain.
Naught broaches freedom's walls but truth.
With all your youth and stamina, plans do furnish
to persuade or force,
no more of lurid, horrid war!
A world ablaze, lies in haze, ensnared, amazed, obscured,
scarred and scored from shore to shore,
and not much more can endure!
Be sure, Barack, to pray, to bend your knee, sing your refrain!
And gaze upon this globe with cautious eyes that strain to see.
Be noble! You stand guard.
Be not blind to man's dis-ease wherever you might find such misery.
You are sentry of our freedom,
and in our common cause season unto season,
law to law, in time, you'll find
the vineyard's grapes ripen, so ferment their finest wine.
Peer out then on this hell bent world,
that worries, sins, then sighs,
in these doubtful, scurrilous, contemptuous of times!
Curtained, blinded men, despoiled by weakness do deny
man's crimes and bleak distress.
But you must pry and scan with vision fine,
not blurred, unsoiled by human indecision.
Heed the signs, and sort the skies to find
our Northern Star - now do go and seek it!
Peer past the lies and time-worn, blatant scars to meet it!
It's you who are trustee of souls free in independent spirit.
A nation born in liberty entrusts you and begs you prove your merit.
Its fields of plenty, mountains purple, great America in raiment,
with golden grains neath horizons of azure, unbound pastures we inherit.
Thus is ours transparently, splendid, beyond grand expectancy.
What you can, you must, nay, have to do,
to stand against a fate too cruel.
Now move to strike the blight of this, our sad, blood bespattered earth
And choose olive branch over weaponry so we may find full worth.
For, Barack, should you, not wise, alert, awake,
call us to arms and vigilance from restlessness and murky daze,
into ever strong militia on a mission bound by fate?
Then this instant, as you ascend, Barack,
you may punch the clock, and raise your hand in faith to oath,
Wait then for no polls
from these beloved units of our United States!
So, say I, our captain, be attuned to do no harm,
and upon this ship near rudderless, we'll be your trusted mates.
You serve, Barack, both prophet by trade and doctor!
And so be bound to reason, lest unseasoned,
you be scoffed at as impostor.
Put all to work again at honest labor.
Give pride back unto us, and to our every neighbor.
You must our Lincoln and our Jefferson and Franklin Roosevelt combined.
So take your mantle up, and plow to furrow,
to build a firm foundation,
of a house with no divide.
Decide! Be true!
We wait high hopes within as you
your journey make our own.
Barack then be our rock,
and now, by God, let future here unfold!
2008 Charles L Riccillo
Charles L. Riccillo is a native of Pueblo Colorado who writes on the arts, entertainment and other subjects. His articles may be found archived at Http://www.chieftain.com .
