I want a voice   I want a deep, resonant, effortless voice   A big voice - bigger than me   I want to speak and hear the floorboards take it up   so that people hear me first with their bodies,    and only then with their ears       a voice, strong like an axe to cut through the silence    strange like distant flutes, to still the senses    a voice to quicken the heart like drums in the night       I want to breathe a whisper that shivers like a star   over some strange bethlehem on some cold stone   circling some distant sun      I want a voice like the voice of many    the voice of a people    the voice of a nation    and with this voice I would cry freedom   and then I would speak peace