Poetry Thursday: Conversion

The Poetry Thursday theme of the week is to write about something in the news. I've been consumed by reading Taylor Branch's first volume of America in the King Years this past month so I've decided to use that as inspiration instead. This is a first go at it.

Conversion

When I hear stories
of Martin Luther King
I imagine glue
on his fingertips
duct tape trailing
behind his feet
dispensing the materials
that holds things together
and over his head
a grey bubble
containing his words
unity
non-violence
protest
justice
and the beam
of a spotlight
glimmering on his lapels.

But he was just a man
falling into a moment
that grew into a
movement
where after the singing
there was politics
disharmony
infighting
among the people on the side
of the righteous
and clarity
was a haze in the distance.

This is the story--
that justice can spring forward
despite ordinary people
that we don't have to be
special
called
ordained
that we don't know the future
and change may happen
when the spokes of the world
touch in just the right way
and we, the moving objects
may be
the inception.