In honor of this week’s election, which seems so incredibly important but which takes place against the backdrop of history, I’m offering this lighthearted rendition (a fragment of my own much shorter history) of the Preamble to the Constitution — that document we’ve been hearing about this week.

What does it mean to you? To me it embodies that tension between timeless ideals and the more timebound effort of a nation to rise to them. In some ways the animation of this clip captures that tension. But I like its simplicity in presenting this founding document as simply a list that describes who we want to be.

Poetry Friday is at Poetry for Children today.