To All (Oriole)

7/15/20

There’s no nuance when somebody dies.
There’s only life for us to live.
Life that was stolen from somebody else.
Life that can never be given back.
I’d give it all to you without thought.
I would give up all the time I took from you.
All the memories
All the love
All the hate
And I would give it all back.
But we all know I can’t do that
There’s only life for us to live.
To know my own house
My own solidarity,
My own livelihood,
My own land,
My own land that felt my soles
Is filled with holes of lost souls
And all I hear are the Orioles.

The only thing I hear
are the Orioles.

Not the movement from right below me,
But the life right above me.
I choose to deny your yells
And step on the dirt of your all
I plant you in the garden.
I flush you down the toilet.
I have it ingrained into my skin.
And I deny it all.
I see it flying in the sky.
I see life cocooning me in its little pod.
I see it all with the flash of a lightning rod.
I see it in the fate of the arms of a firing squad.
I see that it’s all an act of God.
Then I look down at my soles,
Standing in the middle of the road.
I connect the dots and break the controls.
Breaking into the house of God, I see it all,
the intrinsic fraud.
The ground erupts from below.
The sun falls from above.
The cocoon unravels and it’s all unveiled:

A little Oriole
Standing on stolen souls
In the middle of the street
Looking me in the eyes
Until it flies away into the sky.

There’s no nuance when somebody dies
There’s only life for us to live
And lies handed out for us to give.