Once upon a dream 
the well was nearly full.
It brimmed in a silvery arc,
water keen to offer up 
its clean resilience
and cool solicitude. 

Once, when we looked up,
the sky’s starry ladle
dipped down to guide us,
and we took off singing
for the mountaintop. 

Once upon a midnight
we cast sorrow to the winds,
strung up Hope as our fiery banner.
We’d been traveling long before
History thought enough of us 
to notice. We knew 
there’d be no crystal stair, 
no fields of clover lining the path— 

yet we pressed on, arms linked
toward that gleaming horizon;
we set the very air to ringing. 

Once upon a nation,
sitting became the doing.
We walked to work in Montgomery,
sat down for lunch 
in Greensboro and Rock Hill; 
sent our children to school
through a gauntlet of jeers,  
marched from Selma for miles
into tear gas and billy clubs,
arms linked, still singing—

Where did we stumble?
When did we let the banner fall? 

Once upon a bedtime story,
we hung on every word
until the ball was found,
the pup reunited with its boy.  

You’ve come this far,
the stars murmur,
and lived to tell the tale. 
Every mountain needs  
its dreamer. 

Whispers the well,
Remember:
Water deep 
is water sweet.