Inauguration Day on the Potomac

Before dawn

I think I hear someone on the frozen river

and stop to listen

but it’s only the straining ice that’s giving way

and shattering like giant panes of glass

as the river moves it on


so I keep moving,

relieved, as if I might have –

could have – saved some soul

who’d gotten stuck there

without a branch or a hand

or hope to cling to


but that behind me

I’m down the trail again to

Washington, D.C.

on toward Washington

to beat the crowds and witness

the Inauguration


heading south

toward where a glow on the horizon

shows through bare branches

and this time

in the first rays of dawn

I hear a low soulful humming

and sense up ahead

the shadowed forms of people

walking toward the light

And see their breath

Rising up like jeweled veils in the frosty air

walking and humming

with tools on their shoulders

and baskets at their sides

humming the world of their frozen river

strained and shattered

moving on

toward the break of day

toward the sun

toward Washington

and Inauguration