Martin Luther King Jr.

I came to him
Midst my own dreams :
a champion soul ;

I listened on that knoll
to Martin’s speech that yet gleams.
Like a pot of stew for the hungry it steams.

Never to ask for whom the bell tolls,
these gates were blocked by corpulent trolls.

He wanted for the poor not water but cream.

The depths of my soul so gently did he caress.

Pulling all hopelessness out like burrs,
rejecting the blemish of all that were detours,

so flowers covered the bigot’s fortress ;
covered the cold ones like furs.

For that moment, it seemed as if this earth all hatred inters.


© Copyright, Mary Barnet 2012
All Rights Reserved.
PoetryMagazine.com