Improvisation–After Katrina

It was early in the morning

Several hours before the sun would awake

The stale smell of dried expired beer

Filled the streets as incense to Bacchus.

An old young man stumbles to find his way

In the damp streets of a rainless quarter

Jazz echoes off century-old buildings

As if being replayed in a memory

With the river to my left

And the sinful streets to my right

I walk past Jackson Square

A shelter for the drug dealer cloaked by the shadow of the Cathedral

I have left a sea of white faces

Who have finished their evening offerings to Saint Bourbon

Only to face sparse black faces

Tapping away for a stray nickle

And so it was before the storm

A catastrophe?

A blessed purging?

A spineless excuse for a westward trail of tears?

A city built on the improvisation of Jazz

Is again faced with uncertainty

Dear God, craft our melody

With the rhythm of the Spirit

So that the harmony of Christ

May be sung by a choir of NEW Orleans Saints