scorecardresearch Skip to main content

Portrait of The Boston Globe as Atlas

For The Globe On Their Sesquicentennial

Boston's poet laureate recites a poem celebrating the Globe's 150th birthday
Boston's poet laureate recites a poem celebrating the Globe's 150th birthday

some men like to keep the world in the pit

of their palm, a boy beside the psalms

of the pulpit, alms within the reach of the tips


of their fingers. some like to think a body exists

as a check mark, the people as a checkmate,

the city as a check. the politics of living endows


an illness some cannot afford to survive, plasters

a hissing eye and a woman’s fist to the window

of a school bus, means a family can reside


in a home owned by a lord. like land and money,

truth, is also a god. the world is celestial depending

on whose shoulders we sit. truth: the circulation of


newspapers increase during times of war. periled

people need knowing to unfold like a map, need

clarity clear as a marked path toward. truth:


plato’s allegory urges light to be cast onto

our shadows. the truth, then, is a catalyst.

cartography for morphing movement forward.


truth: a writer can rewrite a blushing wound

into a blooming bouquet, convert a disaster

into a display of generosity. Tr uth: a photographer


can humble hunger, capture humility in

homelessnes. a child’s dinged birthday banner

can become decorum designed for the opening


page. some experience the world through a filter

of compassion, a lens of latitude. between us is only

the long length of wind. distance can be closed


with an unexpected laugh, a funny review, a new

understanding. the world, like us, is a heavenly body

depending on who shoulders our weight. some


like to keep the cosmos in the pit of their palms, while

others like to keep the earth held in light. beacon

bound to carry. celtic city. cradle of liberty. globe


of giving. this sphere of life. this beautiful resistance,

this service onto community. this evolution of

revolution. duty to excavate, to reshape, to hold,


like Atlas, to say, like a compass: onward.