Written in honor of the historic inauguration of Mayor Sharon F. Owens, January 1, 2026, recognizing a lifetime of service to the people and neighborhoods of Syracuse. Unofficial poem by Ricardo Nazario y Colón, April 12, 2026.
Lo Que Debe la Ciudad / What the City Owes
for Sharon F. Owens
The city does not begin when the oath is spoken.
It begins in the quiet before
in the breath a leader carries forward
from rooms where no cameras came,
rooms with folding chairs and worn linoleum,
where clipboards tilt under the weight of waiting,
where children learn patience before policy answers them.
Syracuse
of brick, of thaw, of salt trucks moving before dawn,
of red light on South Salina caught in winter slush
has always known the measure of its stewards.
It does not rush to crown.
It studies the hands that have already held its burdens.
It listens for who has remained when others passed through.
And you
you did not arrive from distance.
You were already here,
walking past storefront glass that remembers vacancy,
past porches that hold conversations long after dusk,
learning the grammar of need
in neighborhoods too often footnoted,
too often promised into silence
Before the title,
there was the work
the kind that accumulates without announcement.
Before the podium,
there were thresholds
where heat faltered,
where rent notices appeared without warning,
where tomorrow was decided
in voices that carried more weight than recognition allowed.
You carried no spectacle
You carried continuity
the steady accumulation of being known,
of returning,
of answering without introduction.
This is how a city chooses
when it is honest with itself
not by the sudden spark,
but by the long presence that refuses absence.
And so the moment came,
not as thunder,
but as correction
a hinge remembering its purpose
after years of resistance.
The 55th
a number that marks sequence
but holds within it
a reordering:
the first Black woman
to stand where decisions settle,
the second woman
to bear the full weight of governance,
and yet
not first in labor
not second in knowing.
History names what it can count.
The rest is carried forward
in ways no record can contain.
Hoy la ciudad te reconoce,
no como símbolo,
sino como consecuencia
de años que no pidieron aplauso,
de pasos que no buscaron luz,
de manos que aprendieron el peso
antes del poder.
Porque la ciudad sabe
el poder verdadero
no llega,
se construye
en cada puerta tocada,
en cada nombre recordado.
And now,
the office is not a summit.
It is a ledger.
A book kept open
on a desk that does not close at five,
because the work was already in your hands,
its pages marked by blocks and names,
ink pressed deep where the hand refused to rush,
corners bent from returning again and again,
margins crowded with what was missed.
Each promise entered.
Each absence recorded.
Each street
a line item in the unfinished accounting
of who has been served
and who has been seen.
On streets where highway concrete once divided memory,
where routes cut through lives still spoken of in kitchens,
where redevelopment carries both hope and inheritance,
the work waits
in permits, in dust, in what was left standing,
in the names of families who never fully left.
This is the trust
not to stand above the city,
but to remain inside it.
To hold together
what was once separated by decision and design,
to listen where silence had been policy,
to rebuild not only structures,
but trust
work that cannot be rushed
and does not forget those who came before.
There will be days
when the weight calls for steadiness,
when decisions arrive
without clean edges,
when the past takes its seat
in every room where the future is discussed.
A siren at 3 a.m. decides nothing
but it reminds the city
who is still waiting.
In those moments,
remember what brought you here:
not ambition alone,
but endurance
the discipline of learning names
before systems,
of measuring success
in households,
in doors that open again
in lights that remain on
through another winter.
La ciudad no pide perfección.
Pide presencia.
Pide memoria.
Pide una mano firme
cuando el futuro todavía tiembla,
cuando las promesas exigen prueba.
And we
we stand not as witnesses to a ceremony,
but as participants in its continuation.
Because an inauguration is not a day.
It is a duration.
It unfolds in budgets and in mornings,
in meetings that resolve nothing at first,
in decisions revisited until they hold,
in pages turned back
to correct what should have been right the first time.
So let this not be a closing of celebration,
but an opening of work
the kind that resists applause
until it is earned,
the kind that leaves behind
something measurable,
something that holds under scrutiny.
Syracuse is still becoming.
Still writing itself
in snow and in summer,
in vacancy and in return,
in the echo of what was taken
in kitchens, in blocks, in names carried forward—
and in the work of restoring what was not erased,
only deferred.
And now,
your name is written into that text
not as conclusion,
but as responsibility.
Go forward, then
not alone,
but accompanied
by every door you have already opened,
by every life that has already called you
to account.
Lead as you have lived:
close enough to hear,
steady enough to act,
present enough to remain
when the work is hardest.
And let the city,
in time,
say not only that you served
but that under your watch,
it remembered
what you made possible.