Martin Luther King Jr.
The Gradual Climb
By Robin Graney and Samuel O’Brient, Waldorf High School Class of 2013
As rivers flood and glaciers melt
Cards are laid and hand is dealt
We seem to seal our tragic fate
Let’s win this battle before it’s too late
To save the earth we endeavor to change
Our choices and habits we rearrange
Students should always accept one another
Everyone is a sister or brother
Families bind us as past crumbles
Ideals hold sway as society stumbles
We can survive this turbulent time
If we all stand together for the gradual climb
Comfortable in the status quo
We keep burning bridges, nowhere to go
We are running out of resources to exploit
We are pushed to the edge, to the breaking point
We take our place as children of the earth
As we approach a creation and rebirth
More trees could be planted, the earth could be greener
The air that we breathe could forever be cleaner
Snowflakes will fall and eyes will be clear
Our minds no longer consumed with fear
Thoughts and ideas will soon come to light
To give out blind eyes the power of sight
Racial prejudice will cease to exist
While corruption and evils dissolve in the mist
Unfazed by the media, united we stand
Racing from uncertainty we return to the land
No streets will flood with the tears of our young
Their cries go no longer forever unsung
No more innocent lives taken in battle
No more hear we war machines rattle
Cries of the past vanish into memory
As we escape the caves of Plato’s allegory
As we raise our glasses to the health of mankind
We move forward, our enemies far behind
