After last week’s presidential inauguration, there was a lot of buzz as I scrolled my friends’ and families’ posts on various social media platforms.

The fabulous array of bold and symbolic coats worn by our country’s leading ladies. The musical performances by Jennifer Lopez and Lady Gaga. The promise and hope of a new era of healing for our country. Amid all the buzz, one figure stood out that left many in awe and in conversation in the days to follow: Amanda Gorman.

Named a National Youth Poet Laureate in 2017, Amanda Gorman was asked by Dr. Jill Biden to read a poem at the inauguration. At age 22, Amanda Gorman became the sixth and youngest poet ever to deliver a poetry reading at a presidential inauguration.

The young poet’s presence and reading struck such a chord across our country that, the day after the inauguration, her book “The Hill We Climb” and “Change Sings”, a picture book by Gorman also scheduled for publication in September 2021, quickly became the two best-selling print books at both Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Approaching the podium in a bright yellow jacket, red headband, and a ring that alludes to fellow inaugural poet Maya Angelou, she opens: “When day comes, we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade?”

Completed after the violent storming of the U.S. Capitol just a few weeks prior, Gorman’s poem “The Hill We Climb” is a reflection on America — what it is, what it’s built on, and what we hope it can be. In five minutes and 723 words, Gorman transfixed our nation, articulating the hurt so many of us have felt and the hope we so desperately seek.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the deepening division behind us based on politics, belief, and creed, the growing gap of inequity — the shade that covers us is dark indeed.

Where can we find the light?

“Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country.”

“The only thing to fear is fear itself.”

Many words spoken on Inauguration Day have now become immortalized, as they both articulate the collective feeling of a nation and the promise of a new era to come. So, too, will Gorman’s words be remembered. Not only do her words offer hope for a new period of healing for our country, but a reminder that the ideals that our very country was built on are still worth striving for. An America where we all have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. An America where “where a skinny Black girl, descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one.”

This period of healing does not come about by dispelling our differences or forgetting our past. It comes from celebrating our differences and working together towards a more brilliant, beautiful future.

The shade may sometimes seem so dark that there may not be a light to dispel it.

But, as Gorman reminds us, our country “is not broken but simply unfinished.”

Her strings of words floated like a prayer that we may all lay down what has come between us and look forward to what is before us.

Anne Gentry graduated from Brown University with a degree in comparative literature and has studied in Italy and South Australia. She is currently executive director of the Alpena Downtown Development Authority.