This year’s MLK Day was a rare coincidence with Martin Luther King Jr.’s actual birthday. I suggest perusing his various sermons and speeches on the internet. Furthermore, the best literature on his life and career is Taylor Branch’s trilogy: “Parting the Waters, Pillar of Fire, and At Canaan’s Edge.”

Here is the poem he inspired in me:

Let Freedom Ring – No More

The poor
Need money the more
And need more than money,
For, as a hive does store its honey,
Starves entirely for the starving one,
Yet the one’s unfed while many feed;
Hence, a great truth burning underneath the sun:
We lose all in greed.
For art we all of height
Not the lowliest in our caste,
But only as high as the lowest plight
We observe and allow to last;
For art we only as decent,
And for as long,
As the last scourge recent,
We uncheck in our throng;
For art we only as civil
As the basest aberrancy
Of our supposèd civilization,
Which ever only can feign revel
In fettered freedom if but one revile in captivity,
Bestirring good and evil and their demarcation!
What is sadder, friend?
What sadder sadness can there be,
Than all means and no end?
What is sadder to thee:
A hive of honey drained,
Or drenched while stomachs strained?
You may well have heard this song;
You may have better and clearer, too,
For it’s been sung for man’s life long,
To teach that the many are the few;
So, is the richest man the poorest,
Whilst upon his gilded streets
Lieth the heavy head of the poor,
As to see injustice and not protest
Is where cowardice impotence meets
And, together, tighter close the door!
Yes, wiser words than mine
Have thus this message tried ensign,
Such as another age doth send:
“Man is not an island,”
But is contiguous one to another
In continental sisterhood and brother!
So, yay, and happy it’s been sung before,
But let this be this age’s singing:
Either to all freedom implore,
Or silence for all its ringing!

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