New Orleans Poem: We Can Remember

Maureen Doallas joined our Twitter Poetry Party group, and jumped right in. This is one of her poems that she’s published on her blog, and it’s about remembering New Orleans.

We Can Remember

wafting roasting chicory root
steam-driven cafe au lait
beignets by fistfuls
on a randy French corner.

We can remember

serendipity’s tune
getting loose from back pockets
in a Bourbon Street dive

and Jean Lafitte look-alikes
making the rounds
as day broke day
by day.

We can remember

a jumble of shrimps and crabs
oysters and crawfish
curried and bisqued
for a magician’s pittance
— or a dreamy pirate’s scowl.

We can remember

white columns stretching
to hold the shade for
southern belles’ beauty
on morns too-bright
with hissing Bayou heat.

We can remember

the storm coming
the water rising
the levees crumbling
the refinery leaking
the wondering squall
of need

for everything
worth having.

We can remember
watching eyes watching
for hope
getting lost in hope
never arriving

early enough
or at all.

We can remember

loss
granting no claim
on those who
could forget
would still forget
do forget

a city
a ward
a block
a house
a home
troubled by mud
mold-stormed and mucked
stuck in the caw of
some southern politician’s memories.

We can remember

it was a place to be
once

where po’ boys
might speak
some lazy approximation
of French

and delicate young ladies
wave triangles
of fine lace hankies
to their suitors’ sway.

We can remember
New Orleans
yet

as it never will be
again

where a river channeled
gained its own control
over man’s made things

and not even bleach
could recover
what water rinsed
what water washed
what water wasted
in

a city
a ward
a block
a house
a home

left behind

for the asking.

Poem by Maureen E. Doallas. Used with Permission.

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