Muriel Rukeyser - Ballad of Orange and Grape lyrics

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 gla** 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