Shadows of Death, Pt. 2 Lyrics

Driving North up Highway 61 from Winona

In early November, the brownness of the grass

Swaying against forested shapes of feminine grandeur

Left alone in the frozen rain, while barges on their

Final journey for the season navigate her arteries

Pushing waves through intricate backwater veins

Oh, mighty Mississippi

I drive alone, but suddenly Ananya and Dipankar are

Here, in my mind aboard this journey. I'm not sure

Why you two are here. Of all people, why you two

To be riding with me up the mighty river highway

On this damp, blustery day. This is not your landscape

Or climate. You are tropical city dwellers

Why are you here?

Where's Meena? where's Srija?

There's something in these trees

This highway of concrete

A path that leads, both sides

Of this road are calling to me

This dancing breeze, November's

Whistling wind pushes waves across

Highway lines, as I steer towards

Returning to you.

But here you are

Ananya in the backseat, Dipankar in the front

Talking endless and passionate

You have lifetimes to talk about

And always will

Dipankar facing sideways, finger pointing

Diva of the backseat topping every point

Exclamations reigning everywhere

The conversation will never finish

Never

You two are brother and sister in my mind

And like brothers and sisters, love and bicker

I smile silent

Keep my rock and roll down low

And the windows rolled up with the heat on high

Though I'd much rather relish a fresh blast of outside air

Moist and cold and true

I'm wondering if your conversation will pause

And you will notice these trees calling to me

Do you see that these out-of-the-way trails through

These valleys are in my veins?

Silently I shift the car to a lower gear, wondering

Why this route suddenly seems so profound

When nothing has been for a while

I believe in feeling, but I don't feel it

I feel believing but can't see it

Can't stomach the gravity and don't like to argue

With voices jostling vigorously as I ponder

What will we leave behind and why will we leave it?

Hippies with hearts on high

Stoned in privilege relevancy

Outraging villagers in Thailand

With nude dances on sacred shores

Brochures for purchased culture

Graffiti on temples

Instagram ignorance of grace

Could my skin make me an enemy?

Is my conduct a substantial factor in causing harm

Unproductive to life with more of it coming?

Our time is short

Isn't it all about sharing

What we know, what we feel

And what we hope?

You say we're not all in this together

You're of color, I am not

This is very difficult

For you, for me, are we not

brothers and sisters?

Trite idealistic nonsense you say

Protestant malarkey unmindful

Of deep ramifications contained herein

The festering pain of a community, disjointed

Abused so often so as to not accept

Any narrative except disbelief

Turmoil strikes rage in the purest of hearts

Endless injustice, What to do with the

anger? Will the world

evolve by our anger matching

The injustice of the world?

Would you blow yourself up?

Make the ultimate sacrifice?

For statement? For cause?

For a way out? For the family?

For history?

It would be jingoist of me to answer

A white man's privilege can hardly penetrate

The indecency of entitlement, generations of abuse

Traveling not this familiar road through enticing

Forests in my skin, but driving through Texas and

Fearing for life, driven off the road for terrorist skin

Pulled over for being minor in the eyes of a major

Followed by suspicious clerks in department stars

Placed in a jail cell for a misdemeanor

A weight so heavy it leads to hanging

What do I know of discrimination?

How will I internalize the resentment

Of generations, religion banished

Language succumbed to a foreign tongue?

How can I speak to such resentment?

Feel such rage? Bear witness to

Devastation of slavery and colonization?

Comprehend the depths of hatred flowing

Through ethnic cleansing and cultural appropriation?

Antiquities of a crowding world, maddening

Us and them, us and them

To know my foe as my sister

How she perceives, what makes her grow

Why they think the way they do

What do they really think of you?

Have they drank too much at weddings?

Felt slighted by a ruse? What would

We like to do to them? Take away

Their red hats? Take away

Their guns so they want them even more?

Why do we fight

Ourselves to become

Our own worst enemy?

Hippies with our hearts on high

Holding signs outside the boardroom

Never to relate, to ever stop the hate and

Heckling, seldom crossing

That border but to sell

As storm clouds heard above

Shaking the earth

Had a dream I was a black man loathing white man

A Hindu hating Muslims, a Palestinian

Wanting her home back, all of it

Hurt and none of it

Worked, as I tried to parse

How hatred is born. Whose violence constructs?

What end justifies the means

To render all these weapons obsolete? How

Can we harness our rage to better shape

A just landscape?

Ghost dancers barefoot in the blizzard

Huddled in blankets of smallpox, starving

Cotton shacks and rivers of fire, tight-lipped

Manzanar and Baltimore, armies for the ire

Disappearing seasons, blessings

Of the earth eclipsed

By demons made with iron fists

We've a long way to go

Your conversation has ended and

Now I'm alone again in the car

Knowing soon my car and I will

No longer travel this road

Gone we all will soon be

I feel it on this dark November

I feel the silence blowing

Out our words when thoughts

Are done

The forsaken arteries lurk in the

Darkness behind for others

Waves may consume the highway

But some path will lead on