Monday, September 12, 2005

For Those Who Died in the City of the Dead

They lay by the side of the road; on a street called Humanity and along the I-10 Interstate. Some floated, bloated – their souls lifted, but the flesh was the last to melt away. Others rested beneath planks of one hundred and fifty year-old wood, memorialized by delicate bric-a-brack ornaments that had fallen atop their lumbered shrouds. Some were placed on airport conveyor belts and luggage carts and wheeled into makeshift morgues while they still had breath – because somebody said it was peaceful there. One man died on a chaise lounge chair, which lay precariously on a grassy area near the curb of a previously busy intersection. Somebody finally came for him, but for many days and nights the man lay beneath the stars with one shoe on and one shoe off. Each individual had a story. Lives lived and then swiftly reduced to a last breath of air filled with death. These were Hurricane Katrina and her sinister co-conspirators greatest recipients of unrelenting fury. So when New Orleans reopens her eyes and her heart re-beats with the jazz that comprises her soul, she will play many a tune for these fallen natives whose lives and deaths should never be forgotten.


WASET 9/11/05

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

When I first read this piece I was very somber. Then I realized that this was a tribute because you said what was real so that those who died could show light upon a situation that haunts us all. Thank you.

hi-lo said...

Hey Waset. Just read this piece and I am in awe once again. The memories of those who have fallen will live on in the songs we sing and the words we write.

Anonymous said...

No one should EVER question why I love this Woman.. Waset occupys a portion of my mind, under the title of "Thought" and she also has stock in the portion of my body marked "Heart"
The Undying Love I have for you Waset can always be found under the title of Eternity.. (I know you know this)

Byrons_mind

Anonymous said...

you always leave me speechless, to give myself the chance to ponder what I have just read and answer my questions about the topics that you write . Thanks Gurl!!!

Anonymous said...

Waset's vision is unclouded. She expresses what she sees and feels in common words placed in unique order revealing a mind-movie that is outta this world. God Bless!
With Love, foxi