Barack Obama and Tomorrow

Joanna Hall, 17, listening to Barack Obama at Washington High School, South Bend, Indiana
courtesy Associated Press

I came across this picture today and had to share it here. Because it says a lot about the candidacy of Barack Obama for the United States presidency. Although we know the name of the subject (since the AP photographer provided it), the close cropping gives you only few of the usual data by which you normally identify a person. As such what you see is the face of youth looking up toward tomorrow, a future that, as the mind conjures it, is so awesome, so powerfully within reach and yet...A future that has the power of assuaging the burden of history, of placing an assuring hand on shoulders wearied by not just the vicissitudes of the past, but by a present condition of growing anomie. Looking at the raised gaze and the lone tear at the edge of the eye makes my heart want to leap with joy of the most anxious type! And to ask rhetorically: what sight, beyond Mr. Obama, do these youthful eyes truly behold?