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letra de ballad of orange and grape - muriel rukeyser

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after you finish your work
after you do your day
after you’ve read your reading
after you’ve written your say —
you go down the street to the hot dog stand
one block down and across the way
on a blistering afternoon in east harlem in the twentieth century

most of the windows are boarded up
the rats run out of a sack —
sticking out of the crummy garage
one shiny long cadillac;
at the gl-ss door of the drug-addiction center
a man who’d like to break your back
but here’s a brown woman with a little girl dressed in rose and pink, too

frankfurters, frankfurters sizzle on the steel
where the hot-dog-man leans —
nothing else on the counter
but the usual two machines
the grape one, empty, and the orange one, empty
i face him in between
a black boy comes along, looks at the hot dogs, goes on walking

i watch the man as he stands and pours
in the familiar shape
bright purple in the one marked orange
orange in the one marked grape
the grape drink in the machine marked orange
and orange drink in the grape
just the one word large and clear, unmistakable, one each machine

i ask him: how can we go on reading
and make sense out of what we read? —
how can they write and believe what they’re writing
the young ones across the street
while you go on pouring grape into orange
and orange into the one marked grape —?
(how are we going to believe what we read and what we write and we hear and we say and we do?)

he looks at the two machines and he smiles
and he shrugs and smiles and pours again
it could be violence and nonviolence
it could be black and white women and men
it could be war and peace or any
binary system, love and hate, enemy, friend
yes and no, be and not-be, what we do and what we don’t do

on a corner in east harlem
garbage, reading, a deep smile, rape
forgetfulness, a hot street of murder
misery, withered hope
a man keeps pouring grape into orange
and orange into the one marked grape
pouring orange into grape and grape into orange forever

- muriel rukeyser

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