Whitman and Blanco

Richard Blanco's inaugural poem went out of the ball park, and it made me think of Walt Whitman. I haven't heard anyone say it. I was watching PBS during the inauguration this morning. I thought, maybe David Brooks and Mark Shields will say-- wow, that poem really evoked Walt Whitman here on the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's speech on the mall, and all those other anniversaries-- but they didn't. Walt Whitman somehow managed to get the whole country into a poem. He did it in "The Sleepers." He did it in "I Hear America Singing." He saw the diversity around him before diversity was a word.

I had so many things I needed to be doing, but instead I just sat with a cat in my lap and watched the ceremony unfold. The cameras showed the faces of the crowd, especially when the singers performed. The people were so proud of those high notes.

It takes a lot of patience to listen to a poem, without seeing it on the page, and I saw the patience in the President's face. He understood what Blanco was doing. He heard that poem. He wasn't just laying attention on his face. It was a good poem.