She Often Thinks of New Orleans

Mysterious magnolia's line sidewalks
What would they say if they could talk?
Will they hum soft hymns?
A requiem said for the dead washed away?
Ancient Carnival serenades awake sleeping babes
Flambeaux raise torches high over the Bacchus parade
Mississippi ghosts keep secrets close inside a watery grave
Quiet bayous remember better days
Le bon temps roulette down in the Vieux Carree...

She often thinks of New Orleans
Black Indian Kings and Queens
Stand majestic dressed in red feathers and golden beads
Big Chief drink fiya wata stumbling under voodoo trees
That's the way it used to be
Long before floods and winds and broken levees
She could still taste French Market spice
Stirred in gumbo and dirty rice
Flavored ice cool humid nights
And black boys keep tap tapping feet
Dancing between twillight and Bourbon Street
Cathedral bells ring for restless souls
Tell Creole stories two centuries old....

Brown bodies bring beats to the Marigny
Cafe Brazilian beats
Congo heartbeats play bittersweet Portuguese
"Rebirth just gettin' warmed up chile, sit awhile have a little homemade wine, chez, cuz we gonna be throwin' down in the Treme all night till the next day..."

Can you feel it?
Can you feel it?
Ole people still rattlin' bones in the Seventh Ward
Ole people makin' groceries and playin' cards
Alla dem ole people rattlin' bones behind the headstones
Saving paper clips picked from the Times-Picayune
About black babies disappearing under a blood red moon...

She often thinks of New Orleans
How it was before floods and winds and broken levees
Before ten thousand lives were buried beneath remains of ruined streets
She could hear the blues being blown
Trumpets and horns moan a down-n-out song
Those old cats been playing so long
This here is the place they belong
Outside the windows of Cafe du Monde....

Evening falls with shadows and slow moves
New Orleans has nothing else left to lose
Except for rings and tattered Mardi Gras sequins
Soon she will be a memory
Remembered in myths and picture book history
She will be just a memory
Laid to rest under the sea....