If Only

by JLR

Dr. King:
If only, people could open the doors to your departed soul!
Replay your voice, hear again your powerful passionate plea
for man to see man's inhumanity to man.

If only, people could open the doors to your departed soul
Simply because we need to hear again and yet again...
judge not the color of a person's skin.

If only people could open the doors to your departed soul!
To hear the cries that you and yours heard the pleas --
please see me, see who I am, do not see the color of my skin.

If only people could open the doors of your departed soul!
To see the tear-streaked faces of mothers losing sons,
daughter's and husband's, because of the color of their skin.

If only people could open the doors of your departed soul!
To taste the vile words spoken with such hate, such anger
Simply out of complexities about the color of someone's skin.

If only people could open the doors of your departed soul!
To smell the burning embers of churches destroyed because
others feared, out of ignorance, the color of someone's skin.

If only people could open the doors of your departed soul!
And simply say with great honesty, "Thank you, Martin Luther,"
As God surely said, "My son! Job well done!"

If only people could open the doors of your departed soul!
And reclaim your vision, your voice, your mind, your zest.
Renew the vision, continue the talks, invite the conversation.

If only people could open the doors of your departed soul!
Recall the plea for peace and equality; for the work to continue
toward a colorless society; here, there and everywhere on earth.

If only people would...what a better world it would be!