I wrote an earlier version of this four years ago, when a member of Martin Luther King’s team paid a call to our little congregational church in Maine. I hope you’ll forgive me for dragging it out and dusting it up a bit on this, the 40th anniversary of King’s assassination.
* * * *
call me martin
in the white church on the hill
of the winter white town,
the white student of the black king
revives the rainbow legend.
the student is a long way from memphis,
but he speaks and the icon is human,
an apostle without the pose;
call me martin.
on this memphis april,
doc martin has jetlag and the flu;
still the people line the hall when he passes,
touching the messiah’s robe
as they touched lincoln’s in richmond a century before.
and a few days later they shot them both.
we did.
the live recall is passing away,
leaving the videotapes,
and the curriculum vitae,
open to the whittling embrace
of the interpretors of history.
but explanations move no mountains;
dissertations break no chains.
it is the man,
he said call me martin,
the unassuming dignity,
the reflection of the holy,
who drives humanity to surpass itself.
- O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2004, 2008 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
All opinions are mine as a private citizen.
Posted in history, personal thoughts | Tags: Martin Luther King, poetry
