Away from home for a week,
it is good to be back…
to receive warm breath-kisses from the Alpacas,
to see the trimmed tree line
where they’ve been munching;
to scoop up rich Paca Poo for the composter.
To hang out washed traveling clothes to dry on the front porch,
and take them down,
dry,
in a matter of minutes.
To watch the Barnswallows dip and soar,
the Mockingbird send a loud chirp-alert
because of a cat strolling under the tree.
To see bright tangerine Cosmos blooms
and marvel at the completeness
of the grasshoppers’ stripping of the Hollyhocks.
To eat a delicious, drippy Purple Cherokee tomato
right off the vine.
It’s very good to be home.
But it’s good to have gone
to a study on food
in New Orleans.
We were guests at Dillard University,
which is alongside the London Avenue Canal,
its levee breached following Hurricane Katrina,
flooding first Dillard University
and then so much of the city.
Thanks to good guides/friends
we visited many neighborhoods
to begin to get a sense,
a feel,
for what happened here
almost four years ago.
It’s still easy to see the destruction,
though difficult to grasp
how one could get through it,
return,
recover,
go on.
Many are.
And many aren’t,
their houses
with those unforgettable X’s spray painted on the side,
the hatcheted holes in the roofs,
boarded,
abandoned
or gone,
only a concrete slab remaining.
We heard stories,
of devastation
and courage
and determination.
We met in rooms at the university
that had been under 11 feet of water
for weeks.
We worshiped in a church
that had been under 11 feet of water
for weeks.
At both,
only a third of the population has returned.
We sat under the ancient live oak trees
that New Orleaneans
feared would be lost
and worked at saving.
Their vast embrace
is the most reassuring presence.
Once,
I went to Reynosa, Mexico,
to help a young family build a one-room house
out of concrete blocks
on a landfill,
where carts pulled by donkeys
delivered trash.
New Orleans
reminds me of that experience
because
of the devastation,
the challenge of living amidst ruin
and because
the message we heard
in both places
was
when you get home
“Don’t forget us.”
