Before, during and after Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s inauguration Monday, there were plenty of non-ceremony events happening. 

Here’s a small collection:

Colorado Poet Laureate Bobby LeFebre delivers new poem

The crowd really got fired up from this poem, “Questions for the Moment,” delivered in three minutes during the 1-hour-and-15-minute ceremony:

“Let us say that this moment right now is all there is.

And if this moment right now is all there is, let us fashion from it something marvelous.

Let us drink from its mouth until we become intoxicated, but a stumble into the euphoria and ecstasy of the now.

The mundane is an enemy of the magical humdrum, a murderer of the mystical.

So, let us imagine. Let us build, let us peer into the future unafraid.

The future, where roots in imagination converge to usher in new things. For what is the city but the people? What is progress, but the populace thriving? What is hope, but what fortitude embodies.

Dream with us a new Denver. One we have yet to see but long for. Where multifamily is more than a metaphor, and no need goes unmet.

A revolving world refuses stagnation and so should we. A new city is possible. A new city is here, all around us living and breathing. The present is now. The future is extraordinary.

Can you see it? The vision? Can you hear it? The sweet bells and justice ringing righteously in the distance. Fate convincing us to listen to what we hunger to one day see.

Let us run with hope and abandon in the direction of the chimes. Traverse an urban landscape that has made winners of some and bull’s eyes of others.

Unprecedented times require unprecedented actions. Hope is a beacon beckoning us. Join us at the intersection of empathy and innovation. Where yesterday and tomorrow rendezvous.

Are you working? What are you working toward? What song does your heart sing when it is at peace? Are you leading with love? Are you transmuting fear into fire? Are we ready to reconcile?

Old enough to repair. Brave enough to admit what do we know of accountability? Can we deploy radical imagination? Etymology: Radical comes from roots imagination, to picture oneself.

Can you picture yourself grasping onto the roots of new ways? Is your recognition lucid? Are you grounded? What is our foundation? How do we view transformation? Do you believe in what you cannot see? Do you see what you cannot touch? Can you dance in the space between reality and reason? Can the unreal become real?

Are you comfortable and learning? Are you willing to unravel indoctrination? Can we dissolve the status quo? What do you know of collectivism? Do you believe in more than yourself?

Can you commit to common cause? Can you be unbound by what is? The master’s tools still will not dismantle the masters house!

We need new tools to analyze is to take things apart to imagine is to put them together! What if? Why not? Open the door to possibility?

Leave no one behind! Let us build the best city in the world! One fist, one idea, one person, one action, one need, one day at a time.”

Protestors sound off

While inside the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, Johnston spoke about ensuring a Denver that left no one abandoned, a reminder of the challenges awaiting him as mayor gathered outside.

Protesters held up posters and chanted “people over profit” as they called for solutions that will prevent the displacement of people who reside at the temporary shelter at Rodeway Inn, which the Denver Housing Authority plans to shutter and sell.

Zoe Avalon has lived at the shelter for more than a year. She is afraid she will be forced to live on city streets when the shelter closes in a few weeks and has not found other housing so far. There’s has been talk of bridge housing for people leaving Rodeway but that is not enough, she said.

She believes the new mayor’s administration has been initially responsive to their concerns “but those are words.” She hopes city officials will finds a way to keep the shelter open until a better plan for its current residents is found.

At Rodeway, she is provided with meals and case management. Many people there have PTSD and are victims of domestic violence.

“Some of us have physical disabilities and we tend to be brushed under the rug. We are what people see as the ugly side of the city,” she said.