I Have a Dream Martin Luther King, August 28 1963
“Let freedom ring…”
After Martin Luther King Jr.
His words in 1963 painted across wireless,
from Belfast to Johannesburg, Berlin to Palestine,
China to the U.S.S.R, as urgently, widely dreamed
as in those places in the United States
he sung to: Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina,
Georgia, New York, Tennessee, and California.
Wherever bondage, or oppression clung
his vision realised a glimmer of hope
to the despairing, promised the rainbow,
sun on the shaded side of the mountain.
Echoes of gunshot shook walls that fell,
waking from sleep the conscience
of those who knew they could do better.
Could the dreamer, the idealist, the peace maker
overcome still engulfing troubles?
There is violence in quests for power
that offer the ego its addictive, quick fix,
but no lasting salve to the pierced heart,
the wingless flight of the caged bird.
Orla Fay
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