By Rudolph Lewis

  i.

Crossing Lake Pontchatrain, dark as a turbulent sea, the Crescent rushes in a rainstorm to the city, to New Orleans, Big Easy, to my soul's longing. I hear the choo-choo music of the wheels shaking and rocking, bringing it all home.

At the station, I'm in her monster red truck, we head downtown to Bywater, she at the wheel, her angelic face older than I remember, always and ever a mother, embracing you and chiding you in one breath. Shaking fences, locking doors. And you can't help from loving her, if you any man at all. She's Beauty and Truth.

Up St. Claude to Poland, it's as yesterday this sameness as if nothing ever changes what was and will always be. Houses clapboard, wood primeval as Peter and the heavy rock of despair. Exteriors are illusions, mirrors. It's a genie's world inside a New Orleans house, smells that draw you into mystery and enchantment. It shatters one-dimensional being into so many atoms of mercurial wonder.

  ii.

An African storyteller with numerical tables from cargo logs of ships flying the flags of France and Spain and Caribbean Creoles, of murder and greed and hatred and love of black babies and African mothers: a dedication and a reminder to the blind and deaf of what humanity is to humanity. An ancient Gwen at Dante and Plum with banana trees by her porch. Happy Birthday! You space age griot! May you live a thousand more!

I'm not that far from Texas yet there's nothing but New Orleans, even if I must cross streets water rushing above my ankles clothes hanging heavy ever drawn to terra firma, spirit pulled ever down. A million desires satiated in a Riverwalk, a monument of Morial's leadership in creating a modern-day Gomorrah. And it is still and always New Orleans—food, music, dance, songs of adventure. A place of romance you want to be. Cry New Orleans! Cry zillions of tears for the dead that still walk these cobbled streets, drenched souls that won't let you alone, haunting ever all who take root.

   iii.

New Orleans is an elephant drumming in the Congo Basin. Every ear can't hear what's happening. A city with a message that keeps on coming, keeps on drumming, drumming. Marching to cemeteries in the mind.

New Orleans at the millennium, dying in the poems of Brenda Marie Osbey, the complaint languishes like a lullaby, an antebellum song, a beautiful table of promise that leaves you wet, wondering why not more. I love New Orleans in all its Beauty and Truth, like a poet named Yusef from Bogalusa.

   iv.

What are wireless networks but zombies, painted white death of tribal lore. It always comes back to the word, to who is master of the dead. Rise! Black Man! Black Woman! Dream! In Big Mama, Big Daddy's House of Magic, the dice rolls, no need for care. Can't you hear the drumming, sweet palm sway of the elephant drum. Steady! Druuum, druum! Steadily, on and on! That's New Orleans all night, all day, pleasing all who embrace her, a healing touch that makes the dead live again. She tosses pearls before the unloving, the uncaring, those who ain't got no place to go.

Rock me baby! Rockuh me all night long! I said rock me baby! Rockuh me all night long!  Help me baby! Rockuh me! Roll me all night long!  I say baby dontcha do me wrong!

   v.

New Orleans is a lover like a driver in a brand new automobile who breaks your heart, opens your hood, and fumbles around with your wires. I talk to my lover at the river's bend. Always turning away from that fatal loss. That moment she walked away. We lunch at Madeleine's. Thirteen years of silence and this moment, smoked turkey breast, spinach quiche, and coffee. We talk of Bob Kaufman and Marcus Christian. Of dissertations and publishing books, of poetry and of the heartbreak of poverty. With books and food, we never speak of love. . . . No never love . . .

There's always the drumming, the silent drumming. Harsh memories and old hurts beneath hearing. Oh the blues! The blues! The blues of New Orleans! The milk and blood of this Creole woman. I love you New Orleans. I am gonna love you, love you till I die!

For New Orleans is Nommo, seat of eternal fires, in a hollow just beyond Congo Square. New Orleans is song beyond her hurt and pain. New Orleans is celebration, costume, and ritual. New Orleans is a woman you love but can never possess.

Viva New Orleans! Vive Nommo! Long Live the Magic City!

1990

*   *   *   *   *

updated 8 July 2008