Today is the National Holiday commemorating Dr. King's Birthday.
Proud voice unbroken,
Ringing down decades after death.
Echoing with a tense vibration
and a rolling river rhythm.
Voice as deep and wide as broad humanity,
weeping on the mountainside,
singing out the Jubilee,
within a house divided.
We shared a soil, a city,
a history sealed with blood.
Who would claim our flesh was unrelated?
Almost all who loved the child I was.
Of man he was much
and all the failings born to such
but lives and deaths are precious,
none more than his
and it was these he chose to give.
This sacrifice shall go down deep,
disperse within the clay,
rise through the roots of growing things,
harvest full come scything day.
But til that day comes round,
these words must bear his brand,
the land will wait expectant,
til each heart turns,
its ease disturbed,
to strike in common time again.