If Dr. MLK, Jr. Could Speak to Us Now...

If Dr. MLK, Jr. Could Speak to Us Now, What Might He Say?

Thelma T. Reyna

Historians and political scientists know best, and I am neither. I am simply a poet. In 2017, as our nation reeled from the chaos and upheavals of the first Trump presidency, I wrote a book, Reading Tea Leaves After Trump (link), trying daily to parse how our country was being dismantled. Here is a persona poem in which one of our greatest Americans again spoke for many.

MARTIN, FROM THE GRAVE

If I could turn, I would, but this coffin holds me still. I whisper to you now through fifty years of tears for what you have endured.

We’ve marched these sizzling streets before, these bridges blocked by dogs, batons, and helmets of hate.

We’ve pitched these battles before, teeth tearing ankles, rubber bullets burning backs, clubs dense as rifle butts cracking skulls.

We’ve locked arms, locked eyes, locked hands on heads for safety when they came with boots and hoses to shut us down. We’ve dragged cheeks and chins on concrete when they pulled us by our feet across blood-stained streets. 

We’ve been shot unarmed, flayed to the bone, hanged like dead rabbits by back doors, white folks picnicking by trees where our mangled bodies turned in air, photo ops galore. 

If I could spin, I would, for what they did, what they do, should’ve died decades past but won’t. So my rasp will filter like earthworms through these clods, through stones,  through smoke of churches burnt, through ether and miasmas of stillborn hopes, through centuries of hacking on the shackles. No amount of blood we shed can satiate their hate.

I whisper to you now through fifty years of hush, for I hear boots tramping once again, and smell the Ku Klux stench in the People’s House. I rush my rasp to you right now, for I hear the rattle of voter-suppression chains, hear our ballots torn and tossed, hear us mocked again for marching arm-in-arm.

I send my rasp to you, from here, for I see ramrod arms stretched high, and the man who would be king tell daily lies, and see billionaires with secrets taking reins. I whisper to you now, from here, for I see zealots in towers and lounging by lakes, our people’s money raked into pockets mysterious and soiled.

You’ve stared in these men’s eyes before, withstood forked tongues that turn equality to roulette wheels. You’ve heard their codes and veiled slurs, taken shields against these wars. If you can hear my whisper, remember what my heart once said: The measure of a man is where he stands at times of challenge and despair. Today these heartbreaks bore to the core of earth.

If I could spin or turn, I would. My coffin keeps me prisoned while my spirit weeps for you. My dessicated eyes, vacant mouth,  ears filled with dust ceased mattering on that balcony in spring. My lips are stilled and filled with worms, but your feet hold fire, your arms still link, and your voices are oceans unleashed.

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Reading Tea Leaves After Trump, by Thelma T. Reyna (Golden Foothills Press, 2018). Winner of seven national book awards, the book is available through the press, booksellers like Libromobile, and amazon. Here's a link to the publisher, Golden Foothills Press.