Swallowed by Suburbia

Testo:

© Grathy
Swallowed by Suburbia
Lyrics and vocals by Mary McGrath
Copyright 7/12/19-all rights reserved

Pristine houses
All in a row
Where the residents
Slowly inch up long driveways
Past pristine lawns.

Soon they are swallowed
By giant garages,
Hungry metal mouths
Devour them and close,
Swallowed into big living rooms
Where they are digested.
The neighborhood mutes,
Once again.

Delighting in their sameness,
They are pretty maids all in a row
Making plans for lunches,
Golf or tennis
With their handsome spouses.
Line them up and you can’t
Tell them apart.

The Others,
Can’t get in
As they insulate themselves
From all of the ugly,
All that is different.

They’ve earned the right to be here
Above it all,
Both safe and enslaved

This is where I live right now,
Away from the diversity
From which I was spawned.

Where the sirens and gunshots
Are absent,
The din and the discord are gone,
So quiet,
I can hear
The breathing of the clouds.

I feel no fear.
I too have earned the right
To live here,
With the doors unlocked,
And the windows always open.

I wave to other passersby,
Acknowledgement that we
Are all familiar, that we belong
In this Keep Out Community.

There is a comfort in this place
As we convince ourselves
That somehow we will be spared,
Unscathed from the elements,
That we are safe in our sameness.

Yet no one escapes
The vagaries of age.

The will of nature
Will always win.
You can’t buy your way
Out of death.
No matter how high your fences are
Or the width of your lawn.