{"id":3816,"date":"2021-11-03T22:12:45","date_gmt":"2021-11-03T22:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-the-words\/?page_id=3816"},"modified":"2024-08-19T16:18:12","modified_gmt":"2024-08-19T16:18:12","slug":"michael-priors-inauguration-poem","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/michael-priors-inauguration-poem\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Prior’s Inauguration Poem"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Patrick Coy-Bjork ’23<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At the beginning of October, we had the pleasure of getting to see Assistant Professor Michael Prior back in the Twin Cities! Michael Prior is on a fellowship in New York City for this academic year. Specifically, it is a fellowship granted to him from the Jerome Foundation, an organization that looks to provide support and resources for artists in Minnesota and New York. Michael, a poet, is spending this fellowship working on his new manuscript, which will explore Japanese internment camps in North America. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael was invited to come back to St. Paul this month to compose and share a poem at President Suzanne Rivera\u2019s inauguration on October 9th. As Michael said when he introduced the work, the poem is meant to commemorate and celebrate the event, as well as remind the Macalester community \u201cto look after one another,\u201d as advised by his grandfather. Below is the transcript of Michael\u2019s poem.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you Michael!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ODE<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the occasion of President Rivera\u2019s Macalester inauguration<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To all things both singular and plural,<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

together when together and apart: the starlings\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

morning murmuration above the parkway<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

like the last words of a letter scattering from the page,<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

and below, the lanes of glinting traffic merging<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

past the point. Here, chrysanthemums in a glass<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

and further, the tidepools\u2019 midnight chitin, rockweed\u2019s<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

braided strands, each shallow well of sand a dioramic world<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

suddenly spilling into the next. Which is to say,<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

we are what we choose to cleave to. Which is to say, attention<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

is the asymptotic curve of love. Which is to say<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I admire the way my mother still writes whole emails<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

in the subject line\u2014the one she sent yesterday<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

in its entirety: <\/span>Do you remember the fireflies in Ithaca?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

and I thought of a long June evening, the fields past the lake<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

where we had driven, neither of us having seen<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

something like it before or since: their constellary glow<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

flaring and flickering like a dreaming mind, a city<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

slowly waking. Today, I realized what she meant<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

was closed borders, a continent, a pandemic,<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

that she missed me\u2014as I miss her, my sister, the nephew<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve only seen tottering across my phone\u2019s screen,<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

and my grandfather, who survived a wartime prison camp,<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

who still finds joy in supermarkets, table-tennis<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

at the center, sencha\u2019s tempest in a cup, the sight<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

of seiners bristling along the Fraser\u2014and who,<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

even now, at nearly 90, is heading out to cross the highway,<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

fabric mask halving his face, to leave baskets<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

of fruit and canned goods outside the apartment doors<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

of friends hungrier than he once was. We are<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

what we choose to attend to, and we are what we<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

can share. Which is to say this light is as much<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vermeer\u2019s as Basho\u2019s. Which is to say we are not Odysseus,<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

but the ship, and the oars, and even the water<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

upon which all glide, shirred by the wind, its breath of sleep,<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

the same that stirs the willows I watch at dusk<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

whose branches look like woven hands.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to praise the small miracles<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

of persistence: the weeds that vein<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

the pavement beautiful, the rain and rust<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

flaking away the iron spikes bolted to benches and steps\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

anywhere someone might sleep\u2014and the woman<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

with the hacksaw at 2AM who\u2019s finishing the job.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then, too, the blue-winged, orange-breasted thrushes<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

that flock between the scaffolding,<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

and sometimes, without any discernible reason,<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

burst toward the lake, like a single-minded semaphore,<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

a shimmering missive from many lives<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

that begins <\/span>What does it look like<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

to look after one another?<\/span><\/i> and ends<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re here together now.<\/span><\/i><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Patrick Coy-Bjork ’23 At the beginning of October, we had the pleasure of getting to see Assistant Professor Michael Prior back in the Twin Cities! Michael Prior is on a fellowship in New York City for this academic year. Specifically, it is a fellowship granted to him from the Jerome Foundation, an organization that […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":483,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3816","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/483"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3816"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8637,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3816\/revisions\/8637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}