Goodbye to New Orleans

Goodbye to New Orleans

    Samantha tells Jim, “Just know that where you garden I will cultivate, and the biosphere you inhabit so will be my ecosystem.”
     Jim replies, “Your tribe will be my homesteaders and your cosmic egg the earth womb we share.”
    “We live in an artificial world because the earth isn’t habitable. Since the cars went by the wayside the earth has cooled just a tad. One of the last infrared meteorology satellites detected atmospheric temperature fluctuations. Maybe if we live a nocturnal life New Orleans might be livable again.  But know I am pipe dreaming. What does a dip in the mercury mean after centuries of coal plants and the legacy of carbon footprints from millions of fossil-fueled cars? It is winter so let’s go see if the magnolias are blooming early due to global warming.”
     “Winter is a mere technicality in the greenhouse New Orleans has become. But yes let’s give it a go.”
     A couplet of souls flies like kites on wings through the smoke into the ruins of New Orleans. Their good karma is earned by the sacrifice of small pleasures for the formless form of true finesse in a Superdome whose roof is the sky.
     She wears her tutu proudly for a pirouette to relive her college memories as a ballerina. At that moment, her face looks like that of Helen sailing the lake of heaven who for the first time sees the Isle of the Blest where she will share the afterlife with Achilles over tea steeped in a funeral urn from their native Louisiana.
     Her nervous twitch from when she was a girl
has returned like the goblins that hid beneath her bed. And she taps her toe-shoes like a street performer busking for a bus ticket home.
     To say goodbye to her native soil, they walk by the shores of Lake Pontchartrain. Blue waves undulate like a dream through sun showers where the ocean's heartbeat throbs. Golden streamers of sun unfurl across cerulean waters.
     The blackened ruins smoke peacefully where the tidal lagoon laps the seaweed-strewn beach that once hosted an amusement park. A Ferris Wheel sways in the wind for ghost riders. Dark clouds swirl in the salty breeze where ivory bones are encrusted in soot. Sacred relics repose in serenity amongst shattered shards of domestic bliss. Wrens nest in abandoned concession stands whose chirps penetrate the deep well of quiet. The sound of fluttering wings softly suffuses the silence.
     Both front hooves of a horse on a carousel are raised signifying the rider died in battle. The equine’s eyes are illuminated by the holy light that stands in the glow of the cosmic fire. A fig tree sprouts spring leaves with tiny figs swelling on green boughs. The fecund spring Goddess blesses
the wounded earth with the sweet touch of love.
     Songbirds slip into silence as a fragile peace settles into cool shadows. Among the torn shards of life, the fig tree bears the fruit that persists in this decimated land now that the more voracious birds of appetite have migrated for the bountiful crops of Mexico leaving the familiar sweetness from her childhood to be relived.
     The sky pours orange on smoking ruins whose dying orb sinks like a God who swells in anger against sacrilege. The lovers fade into velvet darkness as coal shadows merge into solid black leaving the nostalgia as evanescent as the cold in
the Godless night with desolation for their supper.
     They converge where tidal lagoon and land meet. A breeze blows on the pampas grass. Abandoned wind chimes ring in the salty breeze. They roll in the warm water on the wet sand. His fingers cascade down her spine. Her lips bubble kisses in smoky trails down his nape.
     Jim asks, “Tell me what New Orleans cuisine you miss the most?”
     She asks, “Don’t you miss, poke salad?”
     Jim replies, “It was my favorite.”
     “Then marry me you fool.”
     “We are already hitched. But we never walked the aisle when we lived here in New Orleans.”
     Samantha replies, “All the priests were gone by
the time we got together.”
     They sit together on the sandy beach. Jim says,
“Samantha, tell me your thoughts on love.”
     “All I know about love I learned from you. Since you were my teacher what more can I say?”