harmony park in the night

We have to go to the places where they are afraid. Our own neighborhoods where the music is too loud, where smoke rises up on the corners from meat and vegetables cooking on open flames. It scares them, how we live. Laughing and sweating out in the open together. For years, frightened white seers were saying we had to get out of the cities and back to the land. I understand the logic, I do. I'm conditioned with that thinking too, that there's some idyllic place for me upstate, but that's not true for me. This is where life is, where the music is, where I feel my own heart beating aligned with others. Certainly it can be too much, like why the fuck is there music blasting at 5 in the morning on a Sunday? Who is that? 

I'm the old woman who leans out of the fourth floor window, finding out. Keeping an eye on the neighborhood all hours is what I do. My little black cat is already in the window because the birds are starting. I already had my theories: either it's someone for whom the party never stops or someone just pulling up from working their night shift. It's the latter. The music was from their car, they got a spot on the Monday side. It's quiet again now. I hear birds and the fountain, the weather is cool. I love it here. This is my home, right now.

I understand the dream of moving upstate– babbling brooks, clean air, not so many people or trash or ICE raids, random attacks. It makes sense that people would want to leave the cities, I really get it. I can imagine that for myself as well, but when I get up there it doesn't feel good in my body, not for long. I feel isolated quickly. Where are all the Black people? Where are my Asian siblings, all my Latinx friends? Why am I not hearing any different languages? Where are the cuisines, the musics? The city has become a dirty, violent place, but it could be beautiful. We can return to the garden just as soon as folks stop giving their power away to people and systems that exploit them. How? Good question. I don't have answers, only responses. 

I know there's a place across the river that they're still scared to go because there are so many of us with our music and dancing. Elephants and crowded buses, babies, noise and messiness. They don't know what to do with themselves on common ground, allergic to vulnerability, transparency, devotion. Scared of virtue. They only know from hierarchy and power-over. See through their game and let's play the game that comes after this one. Where did I leave my shoes? Was I even wearing shoes? Just flip-flops I stashed under the seat on the long bus ride. I'm not scared of being here, I know my way around. I wouldn't mind a pair of more comfortable shoes though.