Poem of Rejoicing by Carole Boston Weatherford

AMERICAN BAPTISM

by Carole Boston Weatherford

        An ancestral spring rises in us
   as we scale a mountain to cast this vote;
a stream once dammed up beyond possibility,
      now liquid and electric in our veins.
        A river of tears greets the news
       that’s been generations coming,
     and we wonder, “Is this like Jubilee?”

       The movement cradled by a dream
     is now a wave.   We are surfing toward
                             the horizon
       when the tide of tomorrow
   carries millions more like us—multitudes
    cresting in a sea of hope and humanity,
    a second coming—to a hallowed shore.
  As Lincoln overlooks the reflecting pond,
     we know that we stand on promises.

      Ghosts wade into the Mississippi.
     Surely, America has been baptized.