The man sat in his car after a trail
jog listening to the four-minute speech
Robert Kennedy gave in Indianapolis

announcing the assassination of
Martin Luther King, Jr. and hearing
the shrieks of shock and horror

of the crowd at the announcement. He
sat and cried. It was an involuntary
response. It was anamnesis. But it was

also something else. Tears at the messi-
ness of democracy, the intolerance of
goodness by evil, fear of fascism always

lurking, always lurking. Kennedy spoke
movingly, poignantly, beautifully on peace,
justice, equality quoting poet Aeschylus

and then two months later Robert Kennedy
lie dead of another assassin’s bullet.
The man started the engine and slowly

drove the back roads home humming a folk
song by Pete Seeger while choking back
tears for then, for now.