New Orleans

I can taste your beignets

dripping and powdery

dissolving on my tongue

 

gold, glittery, gritty

I feel your African American heritage singing it’s soul and rythym

gilded with French curtsies

 

you are a mystery New Orleans

your clapboard, saltbox unpainted homes

speak of barefoot children and generations of your people

 

people grown in the rich, loamy dirt of music

seconds, sevenths and ninths

blues and jazz tickled with horns and drums

 

witchcraft and christianity

stirred in a pot

cathedrals and voodoo in strange harmony

 

your swamps verdant and green

with sultry beauty

their hush filled with a chorus

chirps, slithers, splashes, honks

 

New Orleans you are old

ancient with your people whose customs and tongues

meld together the songs of tribes and gilded Europe

 

Creole you are

a jewel to your nation

a vibrant, living tapestry of your people

dancing in the street, dancing to your beat