The relics of our past that move from each our homes
The images and icons that are tucked beneath glass
Save them for the history books of your little box.
What if we unpack it now? To see what's been inside?
The years of anger and war mud surely line the bottom
Beneath those neatly packed memories must be the Horror
That rests beneath the cross and the rosary beads.
The pictures of the children rests on top of the Horror
Those books that they nurtured their mind must be in there
Even the fantastic ones are surely there - submarines and squids,
Dinosaurs and genetics, whales, captains and other Big Friendly Giants
including windmills and many other sweet things.
And what languages are packed in to the box?
Would a box by any other name be the same?
A box? Der Karton? El Cajon? La boîte?
Who chose the words to go in there?
The ladies who moved those first boxes across,
Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria - such sweet names.
The language of the oppressors disguised
As seekers, in the name of crowns and jewels.
A deadly triangle persists, a death in the box,
Ein Tot in dem Karton. Un muerte in Cajon.
This is the new middle passage, here far from the original
There is no slave ship to box up them up as cargo
No, they are already here, without a ward, without a way home
The live in this box from which there really is no escape
Beneath the ground and the water, in the skies and the magma
There is a stench of death that does not discriminate.
Each vessel of life will eventually smell the stench of death.
But in this box where war and blood and imagination and truth
all battle for the respect of generations of life
The occupants forget that they are all in this together
In the box with all the words and pictures of a torrid human affair
With the earth and its many other speechless inhabitants
The scream of superiority belches forth from the cracks
The undying human need to be special and unique
And where does that get the people of Earth
Look in side that big box, Mira en El Cajon
A refugee stuck in a box that does not speak his language
The refugee in a box with no name and no free currency
To trade or spend or save or give.
When the box is closed and there is no light,
only vague moments of illumination are possible upon the epochs
And our common experience teaches us nothing
Amidst the closed, dark and ruinous box.
A man beaten in his home and forced to other shores?
This is not just an old story from within the box,
No it happens still!!! People forced to hide in the shadows
People that run from the light - because the light is dark.
And in the darkest shadows of this box mankind still wants to kill
To maim, to harm, to control, to show any kind of force.
Because mankind is afraid.
Open the box and let the light shine on all our heirlooms
And in the corners of the box where almost all the forgotten
dust of humanity collects and covers our greatest victories
Celebrate the sun that pours around our awful
but very hard fought victories as people.
And use the past to unleash a power of empathy and compassion
So that we do not simply pack the past in to a box
But that we shine a spotlight on to all our hearts
taking brothers in arms from anywhere
they may have been lost in the box
And love them all as family and friend.
For the seas are rough across this middle passage
and under the water are the ghosts of mankind's hate
but on deck there must be room for everyone
for everyone's box of memories and contributions
to be exalted by all so that the shots we hear
are no longer gunfire from the frightened citizens of our planet
but the celebrations of achievement that humans can find
in each and every babe and parent
Because the answers are inside this box
But it must opened to the light for all
to truly cherish all of our wonderful accomplishments.
