The Folly Of Rebuilding New Orleans

The ceaseless forming and reforming
In all the elements of our nature
From blood that raises and lowers
Replenished in waves through organs
Lungs and livers

In revolutionary emotions that
Become assuaged and pliant
Then rage and devour
Leaving teardrops that dance
Across cheeks that suddenly crack in laughter

In elemental Nature from Spring
To distant Winter changeling
Rivers of motion and stilled ponds
To mountains of firmness and resolve
Blackened rains to white snow and ices that slide and dissolve

If those elements themselves take no harm
From their ceaseless forming and re-forming
Then why look with mistrust upon the change
It is but Nature's way; and in it no evil
Malevolent nature in man the only dam

She has destroyed land to reform it
Reclaimed in lava rich all hot with newness
Ravaged coastlines and bayous to redirect
Blasted waters to cleanse Her skin
Until newborn she spackles with joys

But man stands heady on the beaches
His ego a tower of madness and demand
Until confronting her he will assign evil
Against his ownership revolting her purposes
While blinding himself in rages of desire

"Reclaim it" he shouts
Millennium Mother beyond count be damned!
Give me dispensation, her dowery not enough
What my hands have wrought must be immortal
I interrupt, creating violence for spackles


But Mother marches with time our Father
Both devolving gardens, towers Sphinx and temples
Til pyramids and colossus turn dusty and quaint
For nothing in him lasts nor should it
Like New Orleans he's born in water

Let your city die peaceably wet creature
Wade about with misty memories you can cherish
And place the history in a book of poems
A dry generation is coming and has no need
For what you built was on land leased

The pride of your past is now in default
The rightful owner has returned
So cast your gaze on the liveliness you knew
And let the city sleep
In slumber that ages always form