Wednesday, March 8

New Orleans Will Be Chocolate Again, Ray Nagin

We rode the zip line from Chicago to New Orleans in October,
Dipping our bare toes in the mighty Mississippi so that still-warm water waked behind them. We’d have been thought fantastical before that summer’s hurricane, but
In the aftermath no one had the nerve to question acts of god,
Especially not the insurance companies
Who we fought hard when we discovered the blisters and wind burn would
Prevent us from holding steady jobs making New Orleans chocolate.
I said to you, “this is the capital of the world for dreamers”
And you said, “to think we could supplant them in their own capital”
After all, we had only just arrived in the big easy, had already seen and
Done most of what we planned instead of putting duties off like FEMA,
And old analogy by the time we arrived. Not antiquated, just dull, and
Sprung from the mouths of people who had forgotten the rest of their story,
Figuring it had been everyone else’s as much as their own.
That’s the kind of community you get out of these things: single-struggled, monomythed.
The place was a Roanoke except for those few glad interviewees;
everyone left was the kind of thankful you are after breaking bread in sacrament, and if you think about it hard enough and long enough it makes sense.
You can’t get your house sunk in that type of potential energy without
A little bit of thanks that at least something of miracle proportions had come your Direction, finally.

Eileen thinks really deep thoughts @ 5:37 PM

2 Comments:

 the admiral said...

this is great. one of the best things i've read from you, i think. that's for trying to revive the site, too.

3/09/2006 11:14 PM  

 morgiepoo said...

I read it, I waited a few days, I read it again, and I have to say, once I took the time to pay full attention, it makes a lot of sense and sounds beautiful, or would if it were spoken. Good words, great ideas.

3/16/2006 12:15 AM  

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