On this day, when Turkish troops attack the Kurds, our traditional allies, in Syria, encouraged by a US President whose business interests and leadership preferences bind him to the Turkish dictator and “strong men” around the globe…

On this day, when that same President throws down what may be the final gauntlet and refuses all cooperation with the process of impeachment, called for in the Constitution he swore to defend…

On this day, when immigration and asylum quotas are being slashed to make America white again and anything with our former Black President’s name associated with it is reversed or at least attacked…

On this day, when lies have become so common that even the concept of truth feels threatened…

On this day, when my heart is broken and I am fearful for what the near future holds, I find myself reading Richard Blanco’s poems about “How to Love a Country.” Blanco is the queer, Cuban-American poet that President Obama selected at his second inaugural.

On this day, it is reaffirming to read his biting critique of the ways we fall short and delude ourselves:

“Let’s re-shoot America as a fantasy, a 50’s TV show in clear black and white, sponsored by Kent cigarettes, Wonder Bread, and good, old fashioned war, again. …

Let’s recast every woman as a housewife, white and polite…

Let’s write out women like my mother, who fled Cuba broken as her broken English, who cooked dinner in her uniform after twelve-hour shifts at the supermarket…

Let’s give every leading role to men like Jim from Father Knows Best, never dangerous, never weak, never poor, always white…

Let’s keep gay characters in the closet…

Let’s remake America as great as it never was: Take Two. Quiet on the set.”

• Let’s Remake America Great

The biting sarcasm let’s me access my anger once again. Perhaps I needed to begin there.

But it is the way Blanco speaks to the yearning that still lives in me. The yearning for an America that never was and is not yet, that brings me to tears.

“How I still want to sing despite all the truth of our wars and our gunshots ringing louder than our school bells, our politicians smiling lies in the mic, the deadlock of our divided voices shouting over each other instead of singing together. How I want to sing again—beautiful or not, just to be harmony—from sea to shining sea—with the only country I know enough to know how to sing for.”

• America the Beautiful Again

There is the depth of sadness that follows the anger…that lives below the anger and perhaps fuels the anger that Blanco points toward.

There is the knowing that we carry a burden of grief we have not grieved, not for an America we have lost but for an America we never had.

I hope our leaders can be called to account. I hope we can manage at least that.

But I fear we will not be able to move forward, together, until we have mustered enough honesty for confession and allowed ourselves to grieve the losses of our hopes and dreams, to weep and perhaps to wail, so that we can begin picking up the pieces of our shattered dreams with eyes cleansed and hearts open.

Blessings,

Bill