My elation and inspiration at yesterday's election results have no words. So I will post the words of Langston Hughes and Toni Morrison:

In honor of "Toot"--

Mother to Son
by Langston Hughes

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

Excerpt from Sula by Toni Morrison:

"they called to the people standing in doors and leaning out of the windows to join them; to help them open further this slit in the veil, this respite from anxiety . . . from the weight of that very adult pain that had undergirded them all those years before. Called to them to come out and play in the sunshine--as though the sunshine would last, as though there really was hope. The same hope that kept them picking beans for other farmers; kept them from finally leaving as they talked of doing; kept them knee-deep in other people's dirt; kept them excited about other people's wars; kept them solicitous of white people's children; kept them convinced that some magic 'government' was going to lift them up, out and away from that dirt, those beans, those wars."

I am so glad that the idea of a government that speaks for all Americans no longer has to appear within quotation marks and laced with sarcasm. I am so glad that today there really is hope.

Congratulations, President-Elect Barack Obama! Congratulations, America! Yes, we can.