Thinking back now five more
years
for that incredible moment
in time
a bit of history unfolding
filling our hearts and minds
Sitting in the den,
comfortable, together
hardly believing this day
would come
my wife, our children, my
mother-in-law
all African-American,
watching his speech
sharing his words, his
dream, remembering his work
Our littlest, (then) seven,
asking why the picture was in black and white
explaining, hard as it was
for her to believe, that there was only
black and white television
at that time (gasp)
incredible, incredulous,
watching the preacher on the Mall
How much has changed, how
much transpired, since those days
before the assassinations,
before the internet, before Watergate
before cell phones, before
voting rights, before Vietnam
before we doubted almost everything
the government told us
so long ago, so far from
today
We gathered again, another
year ago now,
black and white, young and
old, under the one banner
to watch the flickering
screen, now in full color
to see another chink,
another link of the chain loosened
We watched as another son,
another man
stood to again take the
oath, to swear allegiance to our law
and, be doing it a second
time, especially,
taking another step, on the
road that Martin walked
to change our nation, in
living color, for one and all
edited May 26, 2014
Black and White – 2 – v4
edited May 26, 2014
Black and White – 2 – v3
January 21, 2013
Black and White – 2 - v2
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
and his final speech before his assassination
and Inauguration of the President
Barack Hussein Obama
&
&
several poems written in 2009
on the juxtaposition of the
80th birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.
and the inauguration of Barack Obama
as President of the United States of America
---
January 19, 2009
Black and White
http://raymondafoss.blogspot.com/2009/01/black-and-white.html
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
watching his “I have a dream” speech with my family;
the message, “It’s not just a dream but a reality”
on the sign in front of church;
the story of Moses and Joshua,
Deuteronomy 34:1-12
Joshua 1:1-9
along with
Micah 4:1-4
Matthew 5:43-48
the sermon, “Love Your Who???”,
by Reverend Huntley Halvorson,
Suncook United Methodist Church, Suncook, NH,
and the hypothetical put to Eric Holder, nominee for
Attorney General,
by Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) on the use of
waterboarding,
January 15, 2009, during his Senate Confirmation
Hearings,
see http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/15/cornyn-holder-waterboard/
&
&
edited
January 19, 2015
Changing
the Wind – v3
(merging
edits to original and version 2)
Edited
July 22, 2013
“changing
the wind – v2”
December 7, 2007
“changing the wind”
Based on the comments of Jim Wallis on
Speaking of Faith, November 29, 2007
He was talking about whether to change politicians
or change the wind, to change the public opinion
which guides politics. He used the example
of President Johnson’s statement to the
Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that it would
take 5 years for a voting rights bill but
it actually took 5 months to pass the Voting Rights Act,
after the March in Selma.
All
of my poems are copyrighted by Raymond A. Foss, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004,
2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015. All rights
reserved. Contact me at Ray Foss for usage.
See all 35,260+ of my poems at www.raymondafoss.blogspot.com
Poetry Where You Live.
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