On the balcony of the Lorraine Motel

you fell backward, your cheek shattered,

and all that mattered in the world

mattered most in that mad moment

where love again met its inevitable end

standing at 6:01 PM behind the cold rails.

History fails to hold its heroes as high

as hiding the reasons the heroes first sang out.

A Remington rifle bullet rang out

across the dirty Memphis street

and completed your final speech

with its exclamation and point in red.

You had been, you said, to the mountaintop.

You had seen ahead to the Promised Land,

man like Moses, fate like his too,

to see from far away what all your life

had been the stage to view—

to be cut down now by a coward’s crouch,

your necktie flung into the air

where your words still hung, growing louder there,

“Mountaintop. Promised Land.”

The promise from the mountain man

whose eyes had seen the coming glory

of the sun as only mountain climbers can.

Here is final part of the speech Martin Luther King Jr. gave the night before he was assassinated:

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. [applause] And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! [applause] And so I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!