David Ross (also known as ”Native Son”), a spoken word artist and therapist, performs two pieces at the 2022 SYT event: the first meditates on legacy, mortality, and the lasting power of words, while the second is a heartfelt tribute to his mother and stepfather”s 20-year marriage, exploring enduring love, sacrifice, and resilience as a model for how to live and love well.’
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Transcript
[01:45:21] Yeah, yeah.
[01:45:22] Give it up for Janice, y’all.
[01:45:24] Yes.
[01:45:25] Janice and Jericho.
[01:45:26] Yes, yes, yes, yes.
[01:45:27] Yes, yes, yes.
[01:45:31] That was beautiful.
[01:45:33] Very beautiful.
[01:45:34] That was tough.
[01:45:35] Yeah.
[01:45:36] So we’re going to keep going.
[01:45:37] Y’all still having fun?
[01:45:38] Yes.
[01:45:39] Hey, hey.
[01:45:40] Give it up for yourselves for being here.
[01:45:41] Yeah.
[01:45:42] Came through in a storm.
[01:45:43] Okay.
[01:45:44] You got to let me do this.
[01:45:45] Oh, go ahead.
[01:45:46] Go ahead.
[01:45:47] Go on.
[01:45:48] Do your thing.
[01:45:49] All right.
[01:45:50] All right.
[01:45:51] So another artist.
[01:45:52] All right.
[01:45:53] So this guy right here, I met him many years ago.
[01:45:54] And he gave me some directions on my writing.
[01:45:55] All right.
[01:45:56] Thank you.
[01:45:57] Thank you.
[01:45:58] Thank you.
[01:45:59] But one of his spoken words ended up in actually becoming a college course.
[01:46:04] So you are lucky and graced to be in the presence of Mr. Native Son, David Ross.
[01:46:14] Give it up for Native Son, y’all.
[01:46:16] Hey.
[01:46:17] Wow.
[01:46:18] That’s news to me.
[01:46:19] I didn’t know that.
[01:46:20] Thank you.
[01:46:21] Thank you very much.
[01:46:22] Thank you.
[01:46:23] Hey, hey.
[01:46:24] Hey.
[01:46:25] I didn’t know that.
[01:46:32] I thought museums were for the dead.
[01:46:36] I thought I was too young to be a relic,
[01:46:39] and yet, markings on my thoughts
[01:46:41] are engraved upon the infrastructure
[01:46:42] of Baltimorean landscapes.
[01:46:45] My voice archived on invisible digital audio material.
[01:46:48] My mother stared at me with love so hard
[01:46:51] that the impression on my face
[01:46:53] that looked like hers
[01:46:54] that caused people to say,
[01:46:56] hey, you Jackie’s boy, ain’t you?
[01:46:59] And now I look in the mirror
[01:47:00] and I see her face every day
[01:47:02] and I ask myself,
[01:47:03] what will they remember when I’m gone?
[01:47:06] My birth date or my death date?
[01:47:09] Milestones of my mistakes.
[01:47:10] The way I live will determine
[01:47:12] how you celebrate me like Martin King and Chris Wallace,
[01:47:15] both optimists, orators, orchestrators,
[01:47:17] wielding dialects that drew hate
[01:47:19] to say the one spoke life, the other death.
[01:47:22] Now breathe.
[01:47:24] Breath is the hidden hand of the two-edged sword.
[01:47:26] Believe that, indeed.
[01:47:28] These vocal cords are sharp, see?
[01:47:30] Anything fake will fall flat, be.
[01:47:32] In the beginning was the word,
[01:47:33] and in the end, a book with record
[01:47:34] of every word you ever spoke.
[01:47:36] Now that’s that.
[01:47:36] Gee, now think how deep that is.
[01:47:39] How a soul decision can spark a soul’s division.
[01:47:42] Imagine that.
[01:47:43] Butterfly effect.
[01:47:45] Spoken words soft and spooling through the cracks in the air.
[01:47:47] Now check how butterflies connect.
[01:47:49] A butterfly once fluttered by an ass.
[01:47:50] What was you born for?
[01:47:52] To be tattered and torn more?
[01:47:54] Was it a poem that gave you a name?
[01:47:56] Or is it you who people are drawn to
[01:47:57] rather than some words you arrange?
[01:47:59] Strange how a lifetime of legacy of good deeds can change,
[01:48:03] be tarnished by one incident.
[01:48:05] Lack of discipline,
[01:48:06] given into your lower conscience,
[01:48:07] the innocence in human nature,
[01:48:09] the act upon it is the carnage behind us,
[01:48:11] power and responsibility.
[01:48:13] That’s what makes us amazing, man.
[01:48:16] But oh, what a tangled web we weave
[01:48:17] when you become prisoner to what you achieve.
[01:48:20] What was you born for?
[01:48:22] When no one came to the baby shower?
[01:48:25] Instead they all sent your mother dead flowers,
[01:48:27] tied balloons at your funeral,
[01:48:29] and danced all day to those songs you hated in your cubicle.
[01:48:33] Why live a life so ugly when you were made so beautiful?
[01:48:35] What was you born for?
[01:48:38] I wonder, what would they celebrate for me?
[01:48:41] My birthday or the day of my death?
[01:48:44] The depth of my heart or the weight of my breath?
[01:48:47] Will my children rejoice in my wake or be overwhelmed with grief at my rest when I die?
[01:48:52] If you should decide to celebrate me,
[01:48:54] I hope you remember my birthday for the good man I tried to be.
[01:48:58] Good afternoon, good evening.
[01:49:00] How are y’all doing?
[01:49:06] My name is David Ross.
[01:49:07] I also go by the name of Son.
[01:49:10] Me and David had the pleasure and opportunity to go to school together in college
[01:49:14] and get our MSWs together and become therapists.
[01:49:18] We had some good times then.
[01:49:20] I’ll do more.
[01:49:22] Peace for you and get out your way.
[01:49:24] Love to all of the poets and comedians who raced the stage tonight, who I saw.
[01:49:28] So give them a round of applause.
[01:49:34] This last piece I’ll do.
[01:49:36] My mother shows up in my writing a little bit.
[01:49:39] Not all my poems about her, but this piece was written some time ago
[01:49:43] to celebrate her and my stepfather’s
[01:49:47] 20th anniversary.
[01:49:49] And it became kind of like this piece to like,
[01:49:51] encourage other people when it comes to the idea of love.
[01:49:59] I’ve never seen a man love a woman the way that my father loved my mother.
[01:50:04] I want to learn to love like that.
[01:50:07] He swept a single mom and her two babies off the ground out of the shadows of hopelessness.
[01:50:13] And as a little boy, all I could think was God.
[01:50:16] His arms are strong.
[01:50:18] He struggled, but he made it, knowing that his commitment was life.
[01:50:21] Little boys need that from their dads.
[01:50:24] I’m glad he understood that it ain’t easy to get a young boy that ain’t yours to love you back.
[01:50:29] But he stayed right there and he never relapsed.
[01:50:32] And man, I want to thank you for that.
[01:50:34] I want to learn how to love like,
[01:50:36] like how I never seen a woman love her pumpkins for what they are.
[01:50:40] No spun gold, she embraced her straw and loved it.
[01:50:43] Cause worth more to her than glass slippers and a horse-drawn carriage.
[01:50:46] Their fairy tale came true with a broke-down four-door Ford automatic.
[01:50:49] And she loved it.
[01:50:51] Baby, any much I can afford, but trust me, there’s gold in our marriage.
[01:50:55] I want to learn to love like that.
[01:50:57] When she was in school, he held us down.
[01:51:00] When he was down, she held him up in high esteem.
[01:51:03] May not meet society’s standards, but he is her king.
[01:51:06] Still his queen, keeping food and cash in her castle.
[01:51:09] Baby, I got you till we get back.
[01:51:11] No feed, no nagging, no hassle.
[01:51:13] Cause together, we gonna fight this battle.
[01:51:15] I want to learn to love like that.
[01:51:17] Nah, never did she ever have a bunch of chickens.
[01:51:21] Bucking in her front yard, all in her business.
[01:51:23] Busy beaks curled down, squawking about what men is and what men ain’t.
[01:51:26] She kept it quaint.
[01:51:27] This is the real deal, for real.
[01:51:29] No pretty picture here I’m trying to paint.
[01:51:31] Believe me, it ain’t.
[01:51:32] Cause life ain’t perfect.
[01:51:33] We’ve seen some hard times.
[01:51:34] And those hard times hurt it.
[01:51:36] But we weathered them together.
[01:51:37] When there was no food in the fridge.
[01:51:38] Here they were nice.
[01:51:39] They went hungry, but they fed their kids.
[01:51:41] Who was happy to live.
[01:51:42] Unknowing, unbeknownst.
[01:51:44] Unpaid bills, rent due, and lights off still.
[01:51:47] In that house, love poured every ounce.
[01:51:49] I want to learn to love like that.
[01:51:50] To love without these regrets.
[01:51:52] To love without holding back.
[01:51:54] To love regardless, despite the setback.
[01:51:56] Hey, you want to know what love is?
[01:51:59] Don’t watch reality TV.
[01:52:01] Read reality weaved in the brilliant fabric of this couple’s life work.
[01:52:05] Durable and double threaded wound with 20 years worth of patchwork.
[01:52:08] Neighbor still sewing.
[01:52:09] Still going.
[01:52:10] Still growing together.
[01:52:11] I tell ya, I want to learn to love like that.
[01:52:13] Never have I seen a couple love like this.
[01:52:15] So strong for so long.
[01:52:16] I’m a lucky one.
[01:52:17] To be a real life Cosby kid.
[01:52:19] To have my own love.
[01:52:20] To have my own Cliff and Claire right there every day supporting and pushing me all the way.
[01:52:24] I tell you what I say is true.
[01:52:26] 20 years.
[01:52:27] Never seen them argue.
[01:52:29] All they did was play.
[01:52:31] It’s like, don’t mind.
[01:52:32] They got into it every now and then, but.
[01:52:35] Hey, they still kissed at the end of the day.
[01:52:38] Bedroom door closed at night.
[01:52:40] My sister and I, we knew everything was alright.
[01:52:42] I want to learn to love like that.
[01:52:44] The only hand I ever seen him lay to her when he was washing her back.
[01:52:47] Wrapping her feet.
[01:52:48] Helping her aching body.
[01:52:49] Getting in the passenger seat.
[01:52:50] The only put down she ever laid on him was the lady where we see.
[01:52:53] I tell ya, I want to learn mom.
[01:52:55] I want to learn dad.
[01:52:56] I want to learn how to love like that.
[01:53:08] I mean, damn right.
[01:53:11] That was hot.
[01:53:13] I saw somebody back there clutching their pearls.
[01:53:15] I clutched my beer.
[01:53:17] Like that.
[01:53:19] Yeah.
[01:53:20] Woo!
[01:53:21] That’s what’s up.
[01:53:22] Hey, give it up for him one more time, yo.
[01:53:23] That’s tough.
[01:53:24] I like that.
[01:53:27] That’s your dog?
[01:53:28] That’s your dog?
[01:53:29] Go for it.
[01:53:30] Thank you.
[01:53:31] Thank you.