Blue, Green, Red and Purple: City Below The Sea
On a weekend when the United States is once again battered by the terrible forces of nature, Betty Collins reflects in this prose-poem on the disaster that struck the city of New Orleans.
Forever this dark river has been running beneath the unknown territory of
my mind where I hear childish voices singing ‘old black joe’ and also on
the mellow wooden radio Paul Robeson pourin’ out the rich dark pain of
Ole Man River; and I was rolling along too reading stories of the swamps
used to read: stories of the Deep South and Loosianna and ‘gaters in the
Bayou and snakes and voodoo and lynching and horrors and pain and fear
too much to even think of an the River Jordan and on top of all that and there
comes clear and strong all that jazz: all the same time sad and boasting and
proud and defiant, Satchmo, Dizzie Gillespie , Ella Fitzgerald, Fats Waller,
Jelly Roll Morton and near everbody sang those songs the whole world
Over and danced to them and copied them and even almost forgot where
they came from; even Elvis ‘The King’ went down Bourbon St. way singin’
‘you looking fer trouble, look right in ma face’ an’ nobody thinkin’ the river was
on top of them 23 ft below sea level: the gangstas exploding from right next the levees driven by rage and poverty and hungry families and dirt and sickness and nowhere else to go ‘cept under the shadow of the levees just waiting for the storm
and ever’body knew that the levees were only little bitty things and would not hold; but nobody done nothing – and then that devil Katrina she came in dancing and screaming and swirling and she ripped the trees clean outa the ground – and’
that ole man river he jest rolled right on in, and in, and pouring over down
over everthing, under everything, sweeping swooping seeping cars and
houses and people and babies and dogs and beds and kept on
kept on sweeping in – and there were cries and screams
shouts and piteous silence and groans and grown men
and women crying like babies and the babies dumb
like plastic dolls just shrinking in the wash of the water
and the stench of the mud and oil and blood and muck and rags
the helicopters whirling overhead and shots shooting to kill and I know
why the cop on camera in his car jus took his revolver and shot himself tears
pouring down his crumpling face and I wish they just leave Noo Orlins lie under the water and every spring just go there with pirogues hundreds pirogues and throw flowers and play bold jazz over the bitter grave it is now. Somewhere else the
people will be reborn and eat cajun chicken and boeuf au mi-sel; and mud
bugs and gumbo jambalayo and refried beans. And we’ll hear the
sound of the trumpets and the mardi gras and they’ll sing ‘I
see skies of blue, and red roses too,and I say to myself
what a wonderful world: because wasn’t we
all born standing up and there aint nuttin nor nobody
gonna get us down. That cop who put the bullet through his own brain too.
