Once upon a time, we grinned to our ears in the cool southern breeze of
New Orleans.
our feet kissing the warm ground, the airplane stench now washed from our clothes;
finally,
we could embrace the spirits of our ancestors, bear them close to our hearts as we
laughed at the table sipping the heavenly sweet tea of Dooky Chase,
walked through the colorfully antiquated neighborhood they once roamed,
mourned in the presence of their tombs who bore the same strange fruit as their once
warm fleshed bodies did when they hung from those trees,Â
danced down Le Quartier Français, singing in unison as our bodies exuded glee,
ate the soul cooked into the collard greens and mac n’ cheese,
immersed into the ephemerality of time as our eyes delighted in the eclectic art of Studio Be,
cried in each other’s arms as the whisper of their voices seeped into the silence of the
graveyard where their bodies now rest, nourishing the soil upon our knelt knees,
gathered together for a digital picture to cherish these memories.
There, we were free.
