"It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, 'Wait on time.'"

--Martin Luther King, Jr., from a commencement speech, Oberlin College, June 1965

* * *

In June 1965 I was 17 months old. Now I am 51, and Dr. King has been dead for nearly as long as I have been alive.

"It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation."

* * *

Snow is falling, a wraith-pale curtain in the windless air.

* * *

"The Eye sees more than the Heart knows."

--William Blake, from Visions of the Daughters of Albion, 1793

* * *

Who opens the door? Who brushes the flakes from her dark hair?

* * *

"Enslav'd, the Daughters of Albion weep: a trembling lamentation

Upon their mountains, in their valleys, sighs toward America."

--William Blake, from Visions of the Daughters of Albion, 1793

* * *

"Everyone wants to know how

it was

in the old days

when we kissed stone into dust

eternally hungry

paying respects to the crippled earth

in silence and in tears

surely one star fell as the mountain

collapsed over our bodies

surely the moon blinked once

as our vigils began."

--Audre Lorde, from "The Old Days," 1978

* * *

"The Eye sees more than the Heart knows."

Do not wait on time.