In The Silent Streets...

...heavy silence like a lead curtain.

Live oaks wading nameless into the Fall,
Scent of the reaper in the dead air where the rage blew through.

Home of the jazzblues has lost its neon nights,
As the ghostwalkers reap the harvest in solemn earnest.

Tropical heat heavy with hearts' burden thundered down deafening,
It's the time for tears now as the stars shine down,
Sheets of hand-written music with famous signatures...

Fade away into the stench of forever,
ragged angry shades in the silent streets.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
© 09/10/2005

Author's Comments

I was thinking of what it must be like walking in New Orleans doing the clean up. The task they are faced with now. The other thing that struggles in my mind is the lost music - New Orleans' musical history is extremely rich. I've heard that Jelly Roll Morton, for instance, wrote all of his music by hand with pencil and paper - and those precious sheets of our history may well be lost forever. The live oaks are all named and chronicled in New Orleans. Look up the Live Oak Society - many will die having their roots submerged for so long. What a wicked harvest this Fall has reaped.