This poem was finished on the day of Joe Biden’s Inauguration, January 20th 2021. It does not have the glitter and panache of Amanda Gorman’s poem recited on that day, but I think it carries a great deal of the relief so many of us will have felt on receiving Biden’s clear signals that sense, sanity and integrity were back at the helm, at least on America’s side of the Atlantic.
The poem has its origins far from Washington, though, at least geographically. It followed a short conversation I had with a near-neighbour who’s Canadian and remembers a view of the Canadian Rockies clearly important to her at an earlier time of her life. Our conversation took place in England, just outside our respective houses here, but within sight of some low Welsh hills to the west. It was my neighbour who made the connection between those hills we could see and her distant mountains which she saw beyond.
Joe Biden’s inauguration as President of the United States has enormous significance for all of us, wherever we might live. Just so, truth is our home everywhere.
