Watershed

It's Martin Luther King Day and I'm the white girl
One seat away from the black woman and her husband and son
We stand up to sing "'We Shall Overcome," and I join hands
with the woman and with a student to the left,
We sway with the singing
I sing the words, the ones that I know, while
woman and student expire their words with eyes closed,
Then the speeches
A student urges that Dr. King meant
the black race to return to Africa and reclaim their kingdom,
"I have been to the mountaintop and I have seen the promised land,"
Amens ripple through the rows,
the next speaker contrasts equal opportunity and equal ability;
I hear him the student beside me and I need
equal possibility but no two innate abilities being the same, still we
need
matched skill in opening to each other, intrapersonally
The land of milk and honey is it really across the ocean in Africa
I'm no expert, but Dr. King's speech lights in my soul when I hear it,
Expanding hope for a country he saw here, just over the hill,
Or maybe I am out of place,
celebrating the life of a man I admire as a prophet,
when I can't say for sure where or what the promised land is
and I don't know all the words to the song.