For Martin Luther King

They will not be satisfied
Till they have had more,
These children of the dream,
These dreaming children draped
In all the colours of the sun.
Till they have had more,
They who are black and white
And all colours of the spectrum,
And all colours of the dream,
They will not be satisfied
Till they have had more.
What more do they want?
They want the earth and the stars
And the beautiful heavens.
They want to be free
And they want the possibilities
That freedom brings. And also
Freedom's weight and dark side.
They want to love who they want.
They do not want to be defined.
They do not want to be limited.
They do not want to beg for
Their humanity, or the right to be
Creative, or different, or unexpected
Or wild, or surprising, or defying
Of boundaries. They do not want
Condescension, or assumptions.
They want to rebel, even against
Themselves. They want to celebrate,
Even that which didn't celebrate them.
They want to love the best fruits
Of the earth, in music, in art, and
In dreams. They want to be the best
That freedom promises, without explanation
Or apologies. They want to astonish,
Casually, like angels do. They want to amaze,
Simply, like geniuses do. They want
To fail, bravely, like explorers do.
They want to quest, nobly, like
Passionate pilgrims do. Nothing can
Be too much or too little for them
To dream, and to accomplish, if it
Belongs to the possibility of being human,
The unfathomed magic of the unmeasured
Spirit. And so they let freedom
Sing into their new transformations
Of self everyday. They are the new
Warriors and masters of the earth.
They are the best of what has emerged
From time's sufferings and history's love.
They are the children of the dream.
And no prison of mind or steel
Will hold them down any more.
They have burst open the door.
We are all children of the dream.

· © Ben Okri, August 2003. All rights reserved.