When Richard Blanco was a little Cuban boy ....

I love this poem by Richard Blanco, the man who read at this year's inauguration ceremony.

Richard Blanco reciting at Inauguration: Jan. 21, 2013

When I Was a Little Cuban Boy

by Richard Blanco

O Jose can you see... that's how I sang it, when I was

a cubanito in Miami, and America was some country

in the glossy pages of my history book, someplace

way north, everyone white, cold, perfect. This Land

is my Land, so why didn't I live there, in a brick house

with a fireplace, a chimney with curlicues of smoke.

I wanted to wear breeches and stockings to my chins,

those black pilgrim shoes with shiny gold buckles.

I wanted to eat yams with the Indians, shake hands

with los negros, and dash through snow I'd never seen

in a one-horse hope-n-say? I wanted to speak in British,

say really smart stuff like fours core and seven years ago

or one country under God, in the visible. I wanted to see

that land with no palm trees, only the strange sounds

of flowers like petunias, peonies, impatience, waiting

to walk through a door someday, somewhere in God

Bless America and say, Lucy, I'm home, honey, I'm home. 

Blanco with Obama