The Tribes Between Us
a girl and a voice
heating their hearts in a radiant new
york restaurant
he wants to impress her picks the price
he’s bottled but she kind of prefers
they were down in mcdonald’s she tries
to pretend that she knows how to slip
which spoon to use her nap can silk knit
her eyes are starved because the
winter’s nice
her hair thick and dark is her blood and
her curves are as dull good as the
clementis
his eyes are as blue as the summer sky
skin of spheres of dawn’s new light
his hair kissed golden by the sunset his
bones as broad as a sturdy mind
a waiter brings down the drinks they
asked the boy is upset
for it’s not the right glass he thinks
he ordered straight
no stutter with a quiet tone he asked
a girl thinks the waiter is not from
this land she thinks of her parents the
strife they withstand
through learning the language and
learning the strengths the hard jobs
struggles to make ends meet and though
she knows that the boy doesn’t want to
be found you’re sad he can’t seem to
understand
that the waiter is struggling to grasp
his words while he thinks he’s asking
for what he justly deserves
the girl wants to tell him he’s being
warned instead
of just as as quiet
go by like out of the story they talk
about life and
all their worries the girl slowly sips
on her ruby red wine and the boy slurps
his beer with no track of time
eventually tom goes to religion and the
girl starts to fight and she lists
all her reasons waving her arms and
starting to shout
the boy imploring her not to run out
the girl still offended she burst at the
scene from the dimly lit restaurant
causing a scene
the boy doesn’t know why she’d so
quickly surrender to all that is painful
and all that is tender
so much that it spoils the time that
they’ve spent this she says goodbye
he fears
[Music]
as they come apart she has home in a
cloud she tiptoes but her heels are
often too loud
into the kitchen holding her breath in
fear hoping and praying that her father
won’t hear
she trips over a jar filled with pickled
tomatoes knocking mother teresa
off the wall with her elbow her father
confused by american dating
he’s been worried all night for his
daughter waiting
he doesn’t sculpt him it’s not his
intent he just sits still in a quiet
disappointment which is so much harder
for the conscience to hold and it stabs
her soul and swallows her whole
he’s a hard-working smart good honest
man
he’s built so much with his own two bare
hands he values his family
far above money and honor everything for
love for his wife for his daughters
as her mom heads to work in the late
midnight hours she tells her to guard
herself to say states in her tower
the world’s not to be trusted it will
steal every youth that will use up her
beauty and twist up the truth and her
sister she holds her and listens and
wipes her tears
plagued by shadows of adolescent fears
her mother
herself beautiful looks with it lived an
adventure-filled youth with so much
excitement
a heart full of gold to poetic recanter
her pride and passion in the hands of
her daughter
and often the vigor and joy in these two
it bursts through the seams and you see
it shine through but sometimes their
sorrow and
faces they wear a look that slowly snuck
on them somewhere
through the dishes and floors that they
scrubbed through dom
loved ones left behind buried now gone
with nightmares of past pain that they
buried
in an ancient abandoned old cemetery
their feet never firmly neither here nor
there
they’re vaguely hearts flowing
their home is fenced by others like
theirs
with half-fixed cars and twinkle lights
in the stairs
smelling of chamomile and pure olive oil
the head of the lamb
that burns on the ball though they do
not all share the same foreign name
they feel like a family and they long
for the same they supported each other
when they our own country couldn’t they
open their homes
when all others wouldn’t the people of
this town they’re sometimes too loud
too tears of meddlesome sometimes too
proud they stir up and gossip they cry
they stare
the brands of the cars and the clothes
that they wear
their wistful whims get the best of
their wits as they speak in exotic
tongues in the streets but as the week
comes to a close to an end they come
together and they
join hand in hand in a chain of music a
feeling of color and they feed and they
kiss and they love one another and their
emotional songs and smells have no
end and they bring a taste of their home
to this new promised land their
motherland
a rock-filled rough rugged warrior she
suffered through hundreds of wars in a
horror
her shape has changed 200 times but her
character it never broke and resigned
never losing her dignity though she did
lament through the rivers of
the tears as fickle as the hopes of the
mobs
a character built through bunkers and
bombs
grown by warriors like alexander the
great adored by his kingdom and by
his fate
by vincent shedding out blood from his
ear da vinci who painted with only his
tears
cleopatra seducing foreign lands through
their hearts
and even before that they prayed to
their gods their gods
of so jealous demanding composers
lustful and prideful mocking their poets
how they liked to indulge and how they
left to surrender
and all that was striking and all that
was tender
two thousand miles further up to the
north another fatherland is also
insightful
born of glaciers erected to stone the
iron
bronze infused in their bones with
soldiers and stallions with village of
plunder
cannon powder that echoed in thunder
they put all their trust and statues and
royals and sir isaac newton
and science and lawyers and darwin’s
evolution and continuous kind
and john locke studied every single
night they knew not to sway
the winds of the seasons they found
their morals
grounded in reason one day not too long
ago a group of these men
they bound on a ship found a new
fatherland
their strength and their stubbornness
and disciplined hands
found a new world found freedom again
and sometimes they killed
innocent natives cotton fields flooded
with the tears they put slaves in
but time did what she does as history
whispers in their reasoning their
laws they soon became crisper
their justice adapted and their morals
evolved
and they became more grounded in the
problems they solved to change up the
laws to seek independence
they fought for a system in the laws to
defend them
protesting injustice they fought for
their rights
they shaped up new character with the
force of their fight
and in a neighborhood filled with these
strong-minded staples there lives a
family full of these people
the father a good man is quiet and wise
he wears a briefcase in a suit and a tie
he waits before sunrise to be home
before dinner
he teaches his children to be strong to
be winners
he never skips a single one of their
games
he teaches the manners at their bones
men the same
to stand up to fight whenever they fall
to dry up their tears to keep playing
ball he teaches his children to keep
working wisely
to reach for the big leak to aim for the
ivs and his wife
as a sturdy and effective woman she’s
left her job
to raise her children she uses no makeup
she prefers simple dress and she tries
not to dwell
on the careers that she’s missed the
simplicity
upholds the roots of their family she
does not spoil them although they have
money
one of her sons starts to grow leaves
the house
chooses a job and he looks for her
spouse
his eyes are as blue as the summer sky
his skin is fair so
dawn’s new light his hair is kissed
golden by the sunset and his bones broad
as a sturdy mind and one day while
sitting in a restaurant
it all becomes clear and he knows what
he wants
she waves her arms wildly
and walks away with the whirl the boy
falls madly in love with the girl
her eyes are as dark as the winter’s
night skin olive
sun gets shower her hair thick and dark
is our blood
and our curves delicate as a clementis
flower and though they are different
in every sense every faction when bare
bodies entangle
there’s no reason just passion they’re
simply extensions of one another
they’re one with love and loves their
higher power and he sees a gazelle
exquisite and tender and she sees a
stallion that will never surrender and
their love is what grants them the
language and patience
to bear open their hearts to let go of
vengeance
for love it is stronger than socrates
passions from kant’s moral reasons
and cleo’s high fashions they learn how
to reason they learn
how to feel she soothes his fury and he
catches her tears
and one day they bring forth a new child
a new life
and the boy and the girl they become man
and wife
and they dance hand in hand in the
fields
of his mothers they play ball with him
in the fields of his fathers
he studies the bible shakes spirit hops
he knows of the passion of the love of
the gods
he knows of the justice of the law’s
predecessors he hears of the sacrifices
of
all his ancestors he dreams of the big
leagues and he aims for the ivies and
his heart
it is good and he makes choices wisely
his skin olive with the sun kissed him
his hair kissed by morning light
his bones broad as a sturdy mind and his
eyes are as dark as the winter’s night
and sometimes he’s stubborn and swallows
his tears
still learning to feel it seems we’ve
got crimes that we’re all guilty of
but the beatles were right all you need
is love
hi i am olivia and the story that i just
shared is that of the coming together of
two very different cultures and worlds
between my husband and i even though we
are two separate people that come from
different cultures
gender economic status religion etc etc
you name it
the end of the day we’re just human
beings and we have the same needs
a difference in opinion if it’s looked
at superficially
can tear a relationship apart can tear a
whole country apart
and dismantle it can make us villainize
each other and just focus on the fact
that
at our core we all just care about the
same things
we just go about it in different ways as
human beings we are inherently tribal
we have this need to belong to a group
and we do it so passionately
but regardless of which tribe race
gender religion or
political ideology we belong to the
things that we disagree about
they’re often only the tip of the
iceberg usually they stem from the same
fears and securities and flaws he
desires to protect our most
important dreams and values we’re all
made up of the same imperfect human
material
we’re all capable of horrible crimes and
beautiful miracles
we all want to know that our children
our parents
the people that we love they’ll be okay
and taken care of
we all just want to feel heard and
understood and we want to feel like we
belong to a family in a community in a
world that respects us and hears our
needs
so important that we as a country take a
moment to remember these things and to
come together
especially considering how divided we’ve
all become
we’ve worked too hard we’ve come too far
science economics technology our
medicine our understanding of psychology
of humanity it’s developed
way too much for us to still be so
focused on how we differ and how we
disagree with each other
so the next time that you come across
someone with a vastly different opinion
from you just take a moment to hear
not just what they’re saying with their
mouth but think about what they
feel and why what that value is that is
actually important to them deep in their
hearts
underneath the superficial words and the
anger that come up out here
try to see maybe you felt that same way
before too
maybe even share that same value
so about 10 years ago i’d come to new
york city
and i became inspired to write music as
i saw so many people here and i was
constantly on the lookout for a place to
write my songs
preferably somewhere with a piano as i
wrote my songs to me it didn’t really
matter whether i snuck myself
into a church or a synagogue a temple or
a mosque
the way it felt as i sang especially
with the song that i’m about to show you
it was always as if the music would just
rise up and echo above me it would call
out my
dreams and my vulnerabilities to the
same entity the same higher power bigger
than me
and it made me feel connected to
humanity to something bigger than myself
it was always the same spiritual
experience regardless of where i was
so i ask that as you listen to my
imperfect song
and you see my drawings think of your
own prayers and hopes and dreams
and let them rise up together along with
my song to the same sky above us
as we share in the same imperfect human
experience
[Music]
together
he’s so close and still so far from
where he thought he’d be
from all the time that he has lost
burning paycheck streams throwing hope
away like
dust with all his prayers
in the unknown
[Music]
knowing nothing more
[Music]
people
tend to forget
[Music]
but we haven’t
given up just yet
when his time has come and gone his song
will play into the wind
soothing prisoners of all their jokes
and
all their dreams with all their naked
hands
beating drums and souls to black and
blue
trying to find themselves trying to find
the truth
promising
[Music]
knowing nothing more
[Music]
people
[Music]
and the fires
[Music]
but we haven’t
given up just
[Music]
yes
all right