.
me in 1963: "Martin Luther King?
Oh, isn't he the guy they keep putting in jail
for disturbing the peace?"

from here by a route
too circuitous to detail
I come around
in the close dusky atmosphere
of Bethel Baptist
abruptly aware of surroundings
minus the glare of light off white skin
feeling conspicuous...
unable to conform
I bob on the surface
of the dark moist murmuring warm

what the visiting preacher
said there that evening remains a blur
yet I vividly recall the shoe
being on the other foot
and exactly
where in that packed assembly hall
the two other white faces were

afterward at the reception
I observe the guest of honor
being shyly avoided
no one goes near him at all
he stands alone
looking tired and incredibly small
so I go up to the man and in a well meaning
good natured show business way
clap him on the back saying
"Working you pretty hard are they?"

I still can't believe
I said that to Martin Luther King
and neither could he
looking up sharply
at such a blatant display of naiveté...
then with patience and remarkable grace
said simply
"Yes ­– but it's worth it"

I tell this story
in much the same way Jubal George Taylor
my grandfather on my mother's side
described the day
when as a small boy
he stood with others by the railroad tracks
in a dismal gray rain
"I didn't know it then" he would say
"but I saw Abraham Lincoln's funeral train"
+++
.
.

.........AFTERWORD — Anticipating this coming Monday, January 21st, I naturally chose this poem.
.........In 1963, when I was a shallow single-minded pop-song writer, my partner Buel Moore and I were always looking for good Rhythm & Blues singers. We found a great one named Butch Williams and spent a lot of time at his home courting him. We were always after someone to sing our songs on demonstration recordings and as a trade off we tried to get contracts for the singers that sang on our demos and we succeeded a number of times.
.........Butch's father, Col. Williams was the 5th highest-ranking officer in the military at the time. He and his family were stationed at Ft. Ord.
.........Col. Williams took a liking to my wife, Billie Barbara, and me, and one day told us that Dr. Martin Luther King was coming to the Monterey Peninsula to speak. His first appearance would be at Monterey Peninsula College in the afternoon, but Col. Williams told us he would much prefer that we joined him and his family at Bethel Baptist, an all black church in Seaside. That is how I came to spend time with Dr. King at the reception in a private home after the presentation. It is hard to believe now that I really didn't know much about the man himself, but I could tell you what song was #1 on the Billboard charts. Of course, I knew who Dr. King was but not really WHO he WAS!
.........All but the ending of WHEN GIANTS PASS is an account written years later about that memorable evening. But as often happens when I follow the lines to the end the poem, it turns out to be about something other than what I had intended when I began to write the thing. WHEN GIANTS PASS is really about the span of time. When I was five years old my grand father lived long enough (92) to tell me that when he was five he saw Abraham Lincoln's funeral train and I can't help but project into the future because when my grand daughter Cara was five I told her my Dr. Martin Luther King story. Cara one day will become my age (78) telling her five-year old grand children that her grand father spent time with Dr. Martin Luther King. All of which goes to prove that our life span is a whole lot longer than our life!
!

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