Four years ago, I was among nearly 2 million people who traveled to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to witness the Inauguration of President Barack Obama. Today, I’m 1,500 miles away, watching the ceremony on television. But no matter where on the map you are, geographically or politically, the pomp and the ceremony are no less poignant or humbling.Of course, there are obvious differences between today and four years ago. For one, the temperature in Washington, DC was colder for the last inauguration than it is today, and there are far less people on the Mall than there were then. Watching the ceremony on my TV, I realize just how much of the proceedings I missed — despite the many jumbotrons that were on the Mall.

Of course, the significance of today, January 21, 2013, isn’t lost on most people. To have the president being inaugurated on the day that’s set aside to celebrate the birthday of civil rights activist and preacher, Martin Luther King, Jr., must be gratifying for those who worked and lobbied for the holiday.And for the survivors of those who, like King, lost their lives in the struggle, it must have been a proud moment to see Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of slain civil rights activist, Medgar Evers, deliver the inaugural invocation.Today, there’s a sense of having come full circle. MLK’s monument graces the southwest corner of the Mall, his spirit hovered over Inauguration 2013 and his dream of an inclusive America was echoed in Richard Blanco’s poem, “One Today,” and in the president’s inaugural address.Yes, today Martin Luther King, Jr. is smiling.Congratulations, Mr. President!

If you missed Mr. Blanco’s poem, “One Today,” please take a read.One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores, 
peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces 
 of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
 across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.
 One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story
 told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors,
 each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:
 pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,
 fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows
 begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper—
 bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,
 on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives— 
to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did
 for twenty years, so I could write this poem.All of us as vital as the one light we move through,
 the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:
 equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,
 the “I have a dream” we keep dreaming,
 or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain 
the empty desks of twenty children marked absent
 today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light
 breathing color into stained glass windows,
 life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth 
onto the steps of our museums and park benches 
 as mothers watch children slide into the day.One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane so my brother and I could have books and shoes.The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it through the day’s gorgeous din of honking cabs, buses launching down avenues, the symphony of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways, the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling, or whispers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom, buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos días in the language my mother taught me—in every language spoken into one wind carrying our lives without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands: weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report for the boss on time, stitching another wound or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait, or the last floor on the Freedom Tower jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes tired from work: some days guessing at the weather of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother who knew how to give, or forgiving a father who couldn’t give what you wanted.We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home, always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop and every window, of one country—all of us— facing the stars hope—a new constellation waiting for us to map it, waiting for us to name it—together.