Wait a minute; first give me a minute to bask in the glory that was the shout-out to atheists in the inaugural speech.

(Sigh.)

Okay.

Apparently, you all didn't like Elizabeth Alexander's poem. I put the transcript of it after the jump—the breaks are almost assuredly not right—in case you couldn't hear it over the commercial-break-like elephant stampede to the bathroom or the bar that most people took the poem for.

Here's what I think: I think that it wasn't good, but I don't think that it was terribly bad. I thought her delivery was pretty bad, and that made it seem worse than it was. But the poem itself is a fair mirror of what we've seen of the incoming administration. It's a little sentimental, but it's not dramatic at all—Maya Angelou's sloppy-tearful poem from the first Clinton inauguration might as well have been a warning sign of the drama that was to come in the Clinton White House—and it understands the importance of uncelebrated work.

Which is exactly what the poem should have been: It looks like, once this necessary ceremony is done with the first part of the Obama* presidency is going to be all about service and getting directly to work, with few distractions. Things start off pretty well: The images of cutting and piercing, immediately followed by the image of sewing uniforms speaks to both the idea of repairing clothes—which is something that people should do more of, but don't do so often anymore—and restoring the image of our armed forces, which has become tattered.

Then there's a ragtag orchestra coming to life, perhaps a little shaky at first. Getting the bus, a farmer, a classroom beginning a test. A return to the thorns, and the idea that words, with a little thought, can be smoothed. And then the first quoted words of the poem are about exploration.

I think the line "Say it plain, that many have died for this day," is something that should be said at every inauguration. It heads up a section of the poem about building and work. The "figuring it out at kitchen tables" is an unfortunate direct lift from the election. The different credos—love thy neighbor, first do no harm, take only what you need—is something that should also be recited at each inauguration, but it comes from nowhere, and it builds into the part of the poem about love, which is exactly when it becomes a generic inaugural poem. It doesn't work at all—here is where she should have fine-tuned the music idea she created at the beginning, and tied it in to the "praise song" bit a little more.

The image of a "widening pool of light," the idea that "anything can be made"—they both are wonderful ideas that get jumbled. And then she goes back to the light, and walking forward. But instead of the music or musicians coming forward into the light, it's a song about coming forward into the light. It's too passive.

If Alexander had just stuck to the idea of Americans quietly doing their jobs, of all those workers coming together into something much bigger than the work itself—that would've been a knockout inauguration poem. It would've been something to see a poet return the ridiculously grandiose day to the people, especially the people whose jobs are so necessary that they didn't have time to stop and listen to something as inessential as, say, a poem at an inauguration. But the idea of the poem being an inaugural poem came in and messed things up. As they almost always do. B+ for effort, C for written execution, D+ for spoken delivery.

*When is my fucking spell check going to recognize "Obama?" When?

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking forward in that light.