Dream On, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2020

This day of remembrance,
Year Two-Thousand-Twenty,
I wonder if Dr. King knew where we would be?
Would he have imagined a past black president?
The rise of fascism?
Renewed imperialism?
And neo-nazis?
Would he have imagined innocents in cages,
At our nation’s borders?
The threat of another new war?
Would he have imagined? …
I am sure he could have imagined,
But he also would imagine the struggle,
To rise up against hatred and bigotry,
To aim for the “beloved community”
He knew was perpetually in the distance,
It was always a dream,
A dream you can’t quite touch,
But a dream you can’t take away,
With bullets and bombs,
A dream can be reimagined, shared, Reinvigorated,
A dream you can keep dreaming,
If you have the will,
A dream is like a virus,
Inspiring it can spread, and spread,
And take hold of the system,
If not now, then when?
Our dream was his dream,
A dream reimagined,
A dream for our time,
A dream when black lives matter, unquestioned, undoubted,
A dream when immigrants, refugees are free,
And find promised land in the arms of their brethren,
A dream when brutality is not from our law enforced protectors,
A dream when “-isms” are not blind,
And don’t exist at all,
A dream when new divisions are not erected to substitute the old,
A dream we all feel the need to dream;
dream on.