Spreading hope and love in poetry:
My wife’s the reason anything gets done
She nudges me towards promise by degrees
She is a perfect symphony of one
Our son is her most beautiful reprise.
We chase the melodies that seem to find us
Until they’re finished songs and start to play
When senseless acts of tragedy remind us
That nothing here is promised, not one day.
This show is proof that history remembers
We lived through times when hate and fear seemed stronger:
We rise and fall and light from dying embers, remembrances that hope
and love last longer
And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be
killed or swept aside.
I sing Vanessa’s Symphony, Eliza tells her story
Now fill the world with music, love and pride.”
In context Lin-Manuel won the Tony for best original score for “Hamilton” on the same day, June 12th, as the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre. This sonnet rings true that history will remember and that love will conquer all, even in the contrasting Americas; a mass shooting vs. a musical theater award show. Four years later and it rings true in 2020 when it seems that America is showing multiple faces, many destructive.
But as history is being made in the streets, hospitals, and in houses know for the its white walls, it is us that will remember and it is us that will carry on because we have hope for a better tomorrow, and we have love for our fellow man no matter the level of melanin in their skin. We fall with fear and rise with hope. We fall with hate and rise with love. Thank you Lin-Manuel Miranda for sharing your sonnet.
I highly recommend watching the recordings of him personally giving the speech.
Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jehrbUGdlE
