Non-Violence

NONVIOLENCE

By Mary Stripling

January 15

Dear Dr. King

Happy Birthday to you and to me.

This time every year you are heavy in my memory,

the only famous person I’m aware of

on whose birthday I was born.

You didn’t get to celebrate your 75th.
I wish you were here.

It seems like only yesterday you were.

Tempus fujit!

but you never wasted a moment of it.

Your timing, until your last second, was loaded with purpose

and a consistent, persistent message.

Since then we’ve seen improvements

but there is still much work to be done.

We are confused.

Your kind of reasoning and rationale

have been turned upside down.

A mother states that during a fight with her daughter,

she didn’t knock the girl’s tooth out.

It was already loose!

For years I have worked on a project that I think you could help me with.

I’ve tried to write a poem that would tell the stories of

Jon Benet Ramsey and

Emani Moss.

Jon Benet with

Blond profusion of corkscrew curls

Twinkling eyes

Cute smile like Cupid’s bow.

An innocence and naivety that never saw what was coming.

Emani with

Dark brown bouncing braids

Eyes as gentle as a doe’s

A smile that should melt the coldest heart.

a courageous spirit facing certain death.

These children’s stories were not about race, not about culture or social class,

but of a severely increasing level of evil.

Their stories, legion, should be told.

I can’t find the words.

Dr. King, you would have made a great poet.

You understood the poet’s cardinal rule.

You wasted no words.

Your message was clear.

I wish you were here.