The pulse beating through their bodies,
The throbbing ache deep in the pit of their hearts,
They know the approaching imminent omen,
But they do not hesitate or falter in step,
Taking each other hand in hand,
With their music, their lyric, their writings, their speech, their generosity, their care, and grace
(Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, The King, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Billie Holiday, Sam Cooke, Langston Hughes, Hansberry, and Kennedy
Bloody Sunday, the Amritsar Massacre, Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Little Rock, March on Washington
Listless are these characters, these events, these people)
With the same tenacity and shriek as their cry from birth by their precursor,
They march equal and steady.
They fight with no anger or prejudice in their soul,
Yet they fall,
They all fall.
Some go with a loud bang, others with a quiet whimper,
An effect so subtle as to create mist from the gentle brush of wind upon the crest of a wave...
And as their effect of their lives proliferate the havoc and instability of the earth,
They rise from their ashes,
A phoenix brilliant, and ember with glow,
They live on and grow above the plethora of the underground decomposers,
Surpass their everlasting love and continuous youth,
To those who hold them sacred,
Their spirit, their soul, their essence and connection with faith,
Beyond the mystery of their existence there are distinct aspects which are certain and true,
This is my ode to those legends, the shakers of the world,
Because of their actions and their fight against nonbelievers ,
We are our future,
We are the masters of our fate,
Today we rise,
We are infinite.