Read the Poem that Michael Castro Performed For His Inauguration as St. Louis’ First Poet Laureate

Last Saturday, January 31, the City of St. Louis held an official coronation ceremony honoring our new (and first!) poet laureate, Michael Castro. The event happened at the Regional Arts Commission, which is often a site for literary events—including the annual “Poetry Out Loud,” recitation competition for high school students. Look for a profile of Castro in the A&E section of our March issue; you can also keep up with Castro’s events and readings on the city’s official poet laureate page, stlpoet.org. And here’s the new birthday poem Castro wrote for city and performed (and yes, if you’ve seen him read, you know that is the correct verb) at RAC last weekend.

RE: BIRTHDAY ST. LOUIS TWO FIFTY

Mississippians lived here, Cahokians

built largest city north of Tenochitlan’s;

traded with peoples of the Great Lakes, Rocky Mounts,

Atlantic Coast, Mexico & more;

left mysterious mounds & powerful spirit

in the earth around our shore.

Osage, Ponca, Omaha, Kawpaw & Paw

all came, moved in, moved on, often in tears.

Native Americans here, by the banks of the great river,

Great Spirit, a thousand years.

250 years since most recent humans gathered, new as

Neo-Mississippians—that is, St. Louis.

Trappers & traders remade us as a center,

& re-opened the gateway for others to enter.

Peoples descended from river folk—

Congo, Yangtse, Loire, Rhine, Tigris & Indus—

great human rivers pouring & trickling into St. Louis—

from every land, from every nation,

from mountains, deserts, prairie & plain,

some supplied & moved on, while many remained,

sensing a spirit by the great river’s shore,

a power spot, a place to stay, & be re-born.

Europeans, Africans, Asians, Americans all

responding to the river’s call.

St. Louis, Mound City, River City,

city of baseball, blues, & beer,

an iconic American city established here.

Still a youngster on the millennial scale,

new when measured on the Mississippian timeline.

Will our best days lie ahead as we enter our prime?

I too was reborn here —picked up on the spirit in the air,

at a time when people made statements with their hair;

Creeley, Ginsberg, Redmond, LeFlore

opened up wide my poetry door.

Snyder administered the boddhisatva vow

to use words to bring light to the eternal now—

where everyone suffers, as the great Buddha teaches,

& love is the answer, as sweet Jesus preaches.

We live by the heartbeat.

The great river, North America’s pulse,

throbs in us, in our bustling businesses, our blood, our spirit,

flows into our music that animates the world.

The river’s timeless depths inform & challenge.

Its dynamic oneness models our future.

In the past our daughters & sons

have pioneered new directions.

Mr. Handy, Miles Davis, Chuck Berry, Scott Joplin,

opened the world’s ears to musical innovation

infused with the river’s vital vibration.

T.S. Eliot, Tennessee Williams, William Burroughs,

Kate Chopin & Maya Angelou,

travelled with the river’s spirit, liberating writing

with fresh language & points of view.

Henry Shaw & Barry Commoner

picked up on the current from the depths of the river

& embraced nature’s healing & energy potential

seeding a healthy future that now is essential.

Masters & Johnson stripped our denial bare,

laid us naked as the river

to make us more self accepting, self aware.

Our smarts & arts have represented us well.

Soul baring writers!

Music for the world to move to, groove to!

Oneness with nature within us & without!

Consciousness expansion! healing power! solar solutions!

Keys to our troubled world’s survival, & to ours,

begins with us.

And the next two fifty begins a story

that can lead to disaster or to glory.

Will we be happy in our city’s mature years?

Will we get beyond our lingering, limiting fears?

For fear is at the root of hate,

a poison to individual & collective fate.

And we have certain obligations

to current & future generations.

Can we invest minds & money with wisdom & sanity

to support what’s best for our common humanity?

Can we provide all kids good education

so some won’t be mired in stagnation

& instead can rise above their station

& add their great gifts to a great nation?

It’s time for this & other conversations.

Will we be known as a city of the gun,

or as one that nurtures life like the sun?

Will we leave as testament

a clean pristine environment?

& can we relate to the Other

as a sister or a brother,

as children of God & the great Earth Mother?

Black, white, yellow, red—

What matters is what’s in your heart & head.

Homophobia, racism, sexism—

These all need to be ex-isms.

What we need is to talk; we’re all human beings,

together we can accomplish great things.

Soul to soul, & heart to heart

is the best & only place to start.

As in the East they say Namaste and Savati—

the god in you honors the god in me.

And as mystics reveal throughout history

the paradoxical universal mystery’s key

is unity within diversity.

I declare this ST. LOUIS’S RE-BIRTH-DAY!

A time to heal, drive fear away.

The first two fifty we’ve made our mark

with our smarts & with our arts.

The future already marks our deeds,

hums to our beat, will sow our seeds

The next two fifty, more smarts, more arts,

& a focus on our hearts.

Time for St. Lou Is, truly, to become

St. Lou Us. All of us–one polity–

with mutual R-E-S-P-E-C-T,

a unity community,

less of me & more of we

to harness the energy of our DIVERCity;

When each part is great, the whole is greater.

Let St. Louis be the incubator.

Our sameness and our variety, united, creates synergy.

Open heart, open mind, fulfill the ends of humankind.  

One with nature, one with each other,

we fulfill ourselves, what we are here for–

Fully human, free of stress, each a distinct wave

in the river’s dynamic oneness.

And each wave is a living river,

a river flowing toward an infinite sea,

all of our ultimate destiny.

But now, our finite stay on earth,

is when we have to prove our worth.

Let us be reborn, renewed, & move forward this re-birth day,

& let our smarts, arts & hearts lead US on our way.

—Michael Castro, January 2015