What if?
Don’t’ hold too close.
Don’t go too far away.
Don’t say “I love you”
Pretend as if we are separate beings
citizens across borders.
Pretend as if the name on the passport
filters out the ancestors we share.
Pretend as if my passport certifies
the purity of my blood.
My blood – not Aryan but pure AMERICAN.
Pretend as if my passport sends out
cosmic rays destroying all the others living in
other parts of America.
We real AMERICANS will arrest those who dare to pretend
there is not a border,
a border separating the criminal, low lifes whose passport
proves the fallacy of the DNA.
What if the borders are in truth the ones I erect?
between me and me and me and me?
What if there is only one person in this ballet?
What if Luis and John and Maria and Gabriela and Juan and Susie and Helmut and Antoine, and Aamir are all one?
What if the one is us?
What then of borders?
Will external borders validate the internal ones?
What if
I
love
you?
Which is to say that
I
love
me.
What if we build a wall of titanium and diamonds which
is harder than my heart of borders?
Will that make us separate?
What if?
Jimmy Pickett
July 13, 2018
coachpickett.org
The July 12, 2018 conversation between the host of On Being, Krista Tippett and Luis Alberto Urrea – poet, author, professor and I think prophet – tickled my heart. I urge the reader to listen to or read this podcast. I particularly recommend one of the poems of Luis Alberto Urrea, “You Who Seek Grace From a Distracted God”.
Don’t’ hold too close.
Don’t go too far away.
Don’t say “I love you”
Pretend as if we are separate beings
citizens across borders.
Pretend as if the name on the passport
filters out the ancestors we share.
Pretend as if my passport certifies
the purity of my blood.
My blood – not Aryan but pure AMERICAN.
Pretend as if my passport sends out
cosmic rays destroying all the others living in
other parts of America.
We real AMERICANS will arrest those who dare to pretend
there is not a border,
a border separating the criminal, low lifes whose passport
proves the fallacy of the DNA.
What if the borders are in truth the ones I erect?
between me and me and me and me?
What if there is only one person in this ballet?
What if Luis and John and Maria and Gabriela and Juan and Susie and Helmut and Antoine, and Aamir are all one?
What if the one is us?
What then of borders?
Will external borders validate the internal ones?
What if
I
love
you?
Which is to say that
I
love
me.
What if we build a wall of titanium and diamonds which
is harder than my heart of borders?
Will that make us separate?
What if?
Jimmy Pickett
July 13, 2018
coachpickett.org
The July 12, 2018 conversation between the host of On Being, Krista Tippett and Luis Alberto Urrea – poet, author, professor and I think prophet – tickled my heart. I urge the reader to listen to or read this podcast. I particularly recommend one of the poems of Luis Alberto Urrea, “You Who Seek Grace From a Distracted God”.
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