From my point of view, if your dream is painted on a bandanna folded away
in the far corner of Andy Warhol's mind, then New Orleans is a hurricane
beating on your window pane, and if you listen quietly you can almost feel
the smooth ride of the St. Charles street car. Where a lone saxophone blows
the sent of magnolias down the narrow streets of the quarter, and everyone
plays possum in the heat, and no one is too big or small to get a cherry
snow ball. Where the drums drum, and the wine is drunk. ”Someone lend me a
dollar, a pretty girl wants a water.” If you can envision the souls from
yesterday singing with the music that rises from the cracks in the streets,
then New Orleans is your dream. She smiles with a heart as soft as the
Spanish moss that hangs from the ancient oak trees, and as warm as the
summer breeze that blow through her streets, she's a pretty maiden with
dirty feet. Communities of windowless monuments stand tall above the ground
masquerading as grave yards. No earth to cover the rotting flesh. These
spirits still dance with her. Wave you bandanna, Twirl your parasol, at
Mardi gras everyone is happy. Armed with enough asphalt and cement to pave a
boulevard back to Paris, the new world stormed in. Yet the spirit of the
swamp still hasn't submitted, it leaves it's mildewed kisses of disapproval
on everything here foreign to the wetlands. This is more than a place it's a
way of life. The people here seem to be possessed by the spirit of the
swamp. People say it's like another country down here, if you ask me it's
more like another planet, a place that time forgot. Still it's more then a
place. From my point of view New Orleans is home. If your idea of a quiet
place to think is hiding in an open marble tomb in the humid summer heat,
then New Orleans is your dream.
© 2014 Katrina Lebeau
Katrina Lebeau
My City, My Dream
