DRUM MAJOR FOR A DREAM

DRUM MAJOR FOR A DREAM that's how Martin Luther King described himself. Too bad the dream looks more like a nightmare at times.

by Ira G Zepp Jr. former professor of literature and many other subjects related to literature at Western Maryland University

"Your dream was clear, we understood it perfectly. Liberty and justice for all - but that was too costly for us; to expensive to dear, as they used to say; have nots having, disinherited inheriting. Is that what you meant by lowering mountains and exalting valleys?

But you beat your drum slowly, persistently, nonviolently. 

Your dream was clear, we understood it perfectly. Heaven on earth. But heaven can wait. It is often unwise and untimely for colour of skin to give way to content of character: For black, white, brown, red, yellow to live together in Shalom. Is that what you mean by making rough places plain and crooked paths straight?

But you beat your drum lovingly, redemptively, faithfuly.

Your dream was clear, we understood it perfectly. Love your enemies, but that is impractical, not calculating enough. Loving those who despise you who speak calumny against you enables us to be brothers and sisters in the Beloved Community. Is that what you meant by seing the promised land?

We understood all of this so perfectly, saw it so clearly that we bear the drummer senselessly, violently, fatally.

From a volume of poems, short notes, and essays in memory of Martin Luther King jr.