Welcome Back To New Orleans

"It's what makes New Orleans feel like home, as important as red beans and rice and Mardi Gras. It's hard to explain how important they are as an icon."

A marching band led the parade down
St Charles Street past the old oak trees
that eternally clutch multi-hued
strands of holiday beads
in their moss draped limbs.

Smiles and tears accompanied
the jazz band
leading the precession
as it made it's way
with all the pomp and precision
of a visiting dignitary's visit.
We didn't have floats,
or breast barring women
on balconies this time,
but green and red street cars
that slowly clanged through
another New Orleans summer day.

They wound past the Garden District,
two years after being nearly destroyed
by the killing waters of Katrina.
Slowly they rolled back into my heart
like a lover returned to me
after time and tides
conspired to keep us apart.

"The streetcars are part of the city's identity, everything from the noise, the clanging down the avenue to the lights at night."

Welcome home!