I Am Having a Dream
That one day all the red rocks and black rocks
And all the people hail all along the docks.
I have a dream.
One day in this future of bliss
The person next door will give me a kiss.
I have a dream.
In essence it is a simple dream
But it is a very powerful light shining in the dark in a narrow beam.
I have a dream.
One day all the people of the communities
Will join together in rampant frivolities.
I have a dream.
In this single retractable bed of mine
I dream of things in a straight line.
I have a dream.
All the unhappy children that provide our portals
Summer sun will encompass all these great mortals.
I have a dream.
A trumpet will sound and echo on all the great mountains.
A horn will sound the feeling of freedom for the rising of all the
fountains.
I have a dream.
That the dreams are specific in capacities of might,
That will happen in this wonderful night.
See also Martin Luther King: I have a dream
About This Poem
Written in direct homage to Martin Luther King Jr.'s iconic "I Have a Dream" speech, this poem adopts the same rhetorical structure and anaphoric repetition ("I have a dream") while offering a more intimate, personal vision of hope. Where King's speech addressed systemic racial injustice, this poem imagines smaller-scale harmonies—neighbors showing affection, communities gathering in joyful celebration, children finding happiness. The imagery moves between the cosmic (trumpets echoing on mountains, the summer sun) and the domestic (a single bed, the person next door). The rhyming couplets give the piece a song-like quality, perhaps intentionally evoking the spirituals and freedom songs of the civil rights movement. Written in 1999, nearly four decades after King's assassination, the poem suggests that the dream continues to evolve and inspire new generations to imagine "this future of bliss" in their own terms. The closing image of dreams happening "in this wonderful night" suggests transformation occurring in darkness—during sleep, in private moments of imagination.