There is a phrase Hart Crane, the difficult but magnificent American poet, uses to interpret the relationship between the ocean and the sky, in a most penetrating manner: “Infinite consanguinity.” No wave seen without the tempering of the sky, and no sky seen but as a reflection of the ocean.

One could say there exists a similar symbiotic relationship between our citizens and immigrants awaiting citizenship, and the nation, two bodies in perpetual relationship with each other.

Our country has been described as always seeking freedom.

Our people have been described as always seeking freedom.

We don’t have a country set in stone, nor are our people — we and it are fluid, expanding, open and attempt to be just. The country fought itself for that direction, and to a large degree prevailed.

That we don’t always agree is a part of the freedoms we admire.

What we would fight for again is a country that does not reflect who we have become.

My generation saw our nation change and grow on the words of Martin Luther King Jr., John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel, Betty Friedan, Harvey Milk, John Glenn, and so many others. Each voice reflective of a nation in change, determined change, always seeking freedom.

And what was our generation fed on: Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, It’s a Small World after All, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the flower children, and marches . . . against war, for blacks, for women, etc.

All to advance freedom. All for fluidity, openness, expanding the laws for all, a celebration of diversity.

This is the true infinite consanguinity between our country and its people. A reflection of one on the other, a binding of each to each, happily without end.

Fan Ogilvie lives in West Tisbury, and is the former poet laureate for that town.