Revision: "Apostrophe to Martin"

(this poem appears farther below, but this version is an update
with assistance from Professor Michael Bennet)

Apostrophe to Martin

Two lifetimes I have seen since yours began
and still I am not free, though haunted by
your words, blood-coated with your passion, seeped
into a history of marching feet.
The cadence of the years still cannot stand
their purity, and you, baton still high,
drum major for a righteousness you saw
that lived in dreams, still march...and I cannot.

It's best you died, perhaps, for you would not
abide another line of voters kept
out in the rain, their voices slain by fraud
and perfidy, their backs still open to
the lash of scorn, and scarce remembering
the wounds that you received when all you asked
was but to love.

That loving didn't get much easier
around this shrinking ball, disfigured from
a restless floor beneath the sea, and for
a while the human heart was stirred, but more
had died from restless greed and naked power
when love was set aside.

There's not much zeal for marching now along
the streets of Washington, and bigotry
is steeped inside. We need to hear your dream
again, to have you sing with us once more,
to pledge anew that we shall overcome

someday.
~