The Dream is Not Complete

This poem is for the Inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States of America and is in reference to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech of two generations ago.

The Dream is Not Complete

The Dream is out there, just a little closer
than it was when I was a child and Dr. King
dared speak it in front of people who would
and did kill him for daring to Dream such a thing.

It has been in my lifetime that such evil stood
and loosed attack dogs and fired rifles and hated,
with a fury, something they could not accept:
That the American Dream, we still awaited.

The Dream is not complete. It may never be complete.
But here, this day, we see so much swept away
by the will of the good people who are willing
to close their eyes to the irrelevancies, and they say:

"We will bring the Dream out of the night, into the light,
and our children will play with, pray with and live beside
your children, all God's children equal not just by law
but by the hearts and souls of all, with American pride."

For we are one nation, under God, indivisible,
and we have healed some old wounds and dared to bring
the Dream with us, back from the world of hope and prayers,
and now raise it up, our unity a more certain, perfect thing.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.