He was our king
From the house of King David –
Selected to serve the nation
In this age of revolution,
To break open
The seals of justice
And open up the gates
To let flow
The rivers of abundant life
Into mighty streams of realized dreams
Like Moses –
Chosen to lead the captives out of Egypt
Into a vast wilderness
Stretched out across the sands of
Dry bones
Laid waste
By the fiery furnaces
Of travesty and travail
And many sorts of dread and hell.
Martin Luther -
Prophet And teacher,
Poet and preacher,
Catapulted in a pivotal age
Onto center stage
To be the sacrificial lamb
Of deliverance
With due diligence
In forging ahead
To the promise land
Of “Yes, I can.”
The reverend doctor whose
Instruments of healing
Buttressed those subjected
To painful existences
Full of sorrows and shame
Where throes of despair
Run down
In crushing blows
On the highs and the lows.
To bring hope alive
And well
Voiced from the mountaintop
Where justice reigns supreme
And righteousness is the means.
This man -
Of flesh and blood guts
Brought to bear
The cross
Of crossing over troubled waters
To the other side
Of midnight
Into the morning sunrise
Of the light reflected
On the dust tracks
Of worn feet
Having tread through
The valleys of the abyss of thorned fists.
He was cast in stone -
A breed apart
Even from the chosen few
Birthed out of God’s own heart -
Liken to Jesus
A pilgrim priest
Among the least.
He was branded with the whip
Of racial injustice
Rights rejected,
And dreams deferred.
He was of a people battered and bruised
But willed
To rise from the groans
Of broken spirits
And bent back-bones
To God’s own throne.
God’s man -
In what can sometimes
Be seen as
A godless land
Where lies abound
As truth,
The profane
Disguised under heavy cloaks
Of false piety
And deceptive moralizing
In the blackened doctrine
Of white makes right.
Eloquence and elegance
Flowed from the lips
Of his oratory
Morning glory genius.
To liberate the mind
To platforms
Of grace and mercy
Which endure forever…
Indicative of the
Treasures on earth
Through our Savior’s birth.
He was crowned
Black-faced
Brown-skinned
Fleecy-haired
Colored-born
In the dark cavity
Of slavery
In the cotton fields
Created
By race superiority’s reign,
To exist outside
The boundaries of God’s begotten Son
In Whom the victory is won.
He came Championing the banner -
“Courage to love”
“Peaceful dove”
Shepherd of the cast out sheep
Leading the lost out of the barren desert
Into green pastures
Beside the stilled waters
Of courage and hope
In the day
Of the soon to be coming
King of Agape.
Firm and determined
Armed with the laws
Of persistence and resistance,
Our Martin
Challenged the systems of evil,
Took on the forces of darkness
Who blight the right of freedom
And the pursuit of happiness
And justified equality
Rightfully due
But denied by the chosen few
Who roped our souls
To poverty’s stronghold
And yoked our spirits
To conditions
Of forceful depression, repression and oppression.
Our Martin rose up
And faced the enemy down and out
Marching up the King’s highway
Fortified by mighty men
And women
Of valor
Taking on the brunt bats
Of angry mobs
Who sought
To bring them to their knees
Because those,
Being blinded
By bent hatred
And ferocious fear,
Could not hear the trumpet sound of
“God is love”
In the songs they sang,
Nor see the light of the new day
Birthing on the wings
Of the zeitgeist eagle
Soaring to the sky
Transforming the mind
High
Transcending time
Why?
To loam above the fray
With the conqueror’s belief
That the seemingly impossible
Is possible,
Though the day is ever hostile.
I commemorate and celebrate
Martin Luther King
A hero of his kind
Chosen to be a peacekeeper of the flame.
A son of God
Baptized by fire,
Christened by faith,
Chastened by adversity,
Anointed in strife.
A balm in Gilead
To soothe the broken soul
To made the wounded whole.
Reverend Lion
In our winter of discontent
In perpetual bondage
Being loosed
To escape from the toil and decay
Of slavery’s dark and dismal dismay.
Freed to partake
Of the fruits of liberty and justice for all
Self-evident
In the rally ‘round the flag
Of the red, white and blue
Stripes of healing blowing in the wind song
For Martin Luther
Citizen King
Unto thee I sing.
"We who believe in freed Cannot rest until it comes..."
Ruth
