what ive been meaning to do

so i've been meaning to blog during this trip. i've thought about it, started some, i even saved 2 but i always forget to go back and finish on that thought. today I'm going to finish this one. one of the saved blogs was a poem i had written so i'm going to post that and then blog.

War Zone
burbon street and beads, line the advertisements for New Orleans, Lousiana
yes we have heard about Katrina and we have seen the destruction she left;
but on the 6 o'clock news, i see those pretty lines of brad pitt houses.
I don't see her real parting gift;
the amount of destruction, impossible to imagine-
the ninth ward filled with plot after plot of bare foundation, stairs leading up to nowhere,
ladders leading up to windows without houses;
the level of reconstruction is nothing compared to sheer volume of destruction,
and it does not stop at the end of those broken levies.
it continues to the upper ninth ward, to gentilly, to st. bernard parish, to the eighth ward, on and on victims are listed,
X's stuck across siding and doors with numbers and letters,
a combination depicting how many were alive, how many were ill, and how many had passed
still remains on houses yet to be picked for restoration and houses in the process of.
they've won this round of lottery against a series of losses;
every street shows the results-
the first winner with a new house and manicured front lawn,
the second with ladders, paint and familiar blue Presbyterian Disaster Assistance Shirts,
and the third player who has lost, still separated from family by thousands of miles,
unsure of what to do with a collapsing roof and three walls.
but still she has hope that someone will come to help her,
to ease the weight upon her shoulders as she continues down the road katrina has destroyed.
and in her eyes there is a light because she can see a house rebuilt for her
she can feel the pride for her city running through her veins
not for burbon street or its bars or its floats
but for the sweet smells of gumbo and the bayous and the arms of the people who grew up with her
surrounding her in a new kitchen on Tennessee in the lower ninth,
listening to the creole of her people and the pulse of her world.


another post later