The Dream

An elegy to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Form: Cinquain Garland)

The Dream


The dream
that conquered fear;
a vision of freedom
to choose our path, subject only
to God.

A belief
that birthed a land;
paid for in sweat, toil, tears,
and sacrifice by a fledgling
nation.

A song
of renewal
echoes within each soul;
words that inspire us with each new
refrain.

Like a
pyre, embers of
hope flare in candent hues,
their light shining like a beacon
at night.

Passed from
parent to child,
mind to mind, heart to heart,
each renews the pledge of freedom
for all.

The dream
that birthed a land
echoes within each soul,
their light shining like a beacon
for all.

Form: Cinquain (Garland)
A Cinquain Garland is a sequence of six cinquains in which the final cinquain is composed of lines from the preceding five (generally L1 from S1, L2 from S2, L3 from S3, etc...) based on the cinquain form – a five-line syllabic verse with the pattern 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 2