A voice is echoing from the mountaintop,

With the cadence and urgency of a Baptist preacher

Warning and gathering the straying flock.

A voice is echoing from a Memphis balcony,

Urging the world’s Joshua generation to go forth

Into the Promiseland of the just, compassionate and free.

A voice is echoing from 1967 and sixty-six,

Inviting those who heed to help the poor,

Resist unjust war and stop being hypocrites.

A voice is echoing from the corridors of Oslo,

Appealing for peace between militarized ideologies

With blasphemous, materialistic, narcissistic egos.

A voice is echoing from a Selma bridge,

Declaring the ballot to be better than the bullet

In a democracy that isn’t elitist, bought or rigged.

A voice is echoing from the Lincoln monument,

Sharing a dream of abolishing violence and racism

Whether they are of European, Asian, Indigenous or African descent.

A voice is echoing from a Birmingham church and jail,

Reminding hypocritical, complacent and misleading leaders

Of their “special place in hell.”

A voice is echoing from a Montgomery bus,

Harmonizing with Sister Rosa’s and others to proclaim:

Equality and human rights aren’t just for us.

A voice is echoing from the spirit of a child,

Harmonizing with Brother Malcolm’s and many more to say:

Thank you, Most Gracious, Almighty One, for being our Guide

John Ellis Ishmael Briggs

Roxie