Spoken Word Performance
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
i’m
never afraid this city will forget to
breathe
the silence downtown rings out like
tornado
sirens but if you peer into our windows
the city keeps singing disaster
after disaster makes most broken
it made us artists our music
is an iron lung 200 years and the city
still feels young
because there will always be more
children
more lyrics more hope
that tomorrow brings something
luminescent the thing about people is
we all exist with as many faces as
friends
so when the storm comes we empty the
shelves
we shield the children we watch our
backs
because the storm will make you see
yourself
when the storm comes you cannot lock the
door
when the sickness comes you can’t forget
anymore disasters make us remember the
things we fight for
live for like when your sister says she
loves you you
fight to believe her you never realize
how fast disaster
can show you the worst side of humanity
or how it can show you beauty
somehow this quarantine has given me
sanctuary it is saving the only light
left the way the clap of our hands keep
time with our syncopated heartbeats
i call it daylight savings time
my city is its bluegrass rhythm
and i know that tomorrow will sing
because every choice we make in darker
times
splinters into different timelines
there’s always a timeline
where we come together as a community
and there’s always a timeline
where we fall apart there is never a
more resounding still
than the moment when reality splits
in the hush another world is born
in the moments when the wind is prepped
to decimate millions of years of
evolution in a single breath there may
not be
silence but there is stillness
i imagine a diametric mind
the shallow echo of a heartbeat and
eardrums
may remind us that we are alive
it may remind us how in a different
timeline any place could be in the eye
of the storm
we are a city that has taken hits and we
have the right to mourn
may it remind us that there is more
we may have run out of clarity
but nashville will never
run out of possibilities
you