This entry is going to be dreadfully off-topic, but there’s nothing I can do about it…
Tuesday was my fiftieth birthday, and it was a day that went down in history. Not, of course, because of my birthday. As some of you may have heard, we had an election in the U.S. and the good guys won.
As I watched the election coverage on Tuesday night, I was especially moved by the joy and tears of the crowd in Chicago, which seemed to me completely different from the usual joy that you see from the supporters of the winning side. It helped me understand something about this election that I had not quite gotten before. It was very interesting how the political experts, after denying that race was an issue, nevertheless talked most of the evening about race. I think that they missed the point, too.
This election wasn’t about race, it was about redemption. In so many ways.
Over the past few days I’ve worked on a poem that tries to express what I saw in the faces of those people who listened to Barack Obama speak in Grant Park. Of course I’m not any kind of poet, but I’ve had a melody in my head for years that was waiting for words, and these seemed to be the words that fit.
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What Martin Said
I’ve been thinking about what Martin said,
And how in the desert he found an oasis,
And never could I forget
What he told us so many years ago …
Thinking about what Martin said,
And I’ve been in the desert long enough that I know.
He said: I’ve been to the mountaintop,
Spoken with the angels and looked out in the distance
And I saw the Promised Land
And I asked them, “Can we get there?†“Yes we can!â€
I’ve been to the mountaintop,
I’ve seen the angels, and they told me that we can.
Now that forty years have come and gone,
We don’t have a preacher, but we have a leader,
Who showed us a hidden road
Even though we did not know where it goes …
Forty years have come and gone,
We found a leader who showed us the hidden road.
We’ve been traveling the pilgrim’s path,
We started as hundreds but swelled into millions
And no matter where we went
On this road, on this steep redemption road …
Traveling the pilgrim’s path,
But one set of footsteps has always been there before.
Now we’ve come around the final bend,
And shining in the distance, we’ve seen the mountain,
And never again can doubt
What he told us so many years ago …
Come around the final bend,
Come see the mountain, remember what Martin said.
He said: I’ve been to the mountaintop,
Spoken with the millions who stood there assembled,
And I saw the Promised Land
And I asked them, “Can we get there?†“Yes we can!â€
I’ve been to the mountaintop,
I’ve seen the millions, and they told me that we can.
Dana Mackenzie
