This week Eco-Chef Bryant Terry has offered recipes for a springtime 'Rebirth Brunch' dedicated to the resurrection of New Orleans. Today he shares a tribute to the city by poet Mike Molina.
Mike Molina, one of my buddies from Xavier, composed this poem to open up my "Mardi Gras (Phat Tuesday)" menu in Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen. Hurricane Katrina devastated the city less than six months later.
Down in New Orleans
Saffron skies chase down the sun
Another sultry day is done
Heat seasoned skin keeps you hotter than the Parish
church kitchen
at night in New Orleans
where sound is sautéed
on romping trombones and throbbing base
where drumsticks drizzle
symbols sizzle
and rattling snares quake
It is hot in every season
and hot for no reason
down in New Orleans
She sits in the hip
of the Mississippi River's switch
her curve births life
she dances through savage bayous
where St. Malo stole freedom and sung indigo blues
where Yoruba spirits still cast a gris gris
where swamp bug symphonies strike syncopated beats
where rigid time melts into jazz
where melodies get peppered with pizzazz
down in New Orleans
Catacombs rise
and lift crosses to the sky
as we sink in sin drenched soil
below sea level
six feet above the devil
where the gumbo is slow to boil
roux runs thick
rich as mixed blood
birthing blessed harvests of ethnic floods
We are patois people
in kinship so close
that only last names sing those secrets untold
We indigenous Afro-Creole-Eurasian flavors
curry favor in Congo Square
down in New Orleans
We celebrate
where poor boys can eat, drink and pray
in the jambalaya jumble before Fat Tuesday
when the marching bands rumble
and the flambeaux sway
and ancient oaks lean and toast to hurricanes past
where cast iron curls
and rain stains glass
At a Super Sunday Second Line
you can buckjump out of your mind
party till the sun shines
pass a real good time
down in New Orleans
Welcome yourself up out of yourself
and into the taste of my town
Lose yourself until your soul is found
Down in New Orleans where my blues was born
--Michael Otieno Molina
Michael Otieno Molina is a New Orleans native performance poet, mixed-media producer, and author of the verse novel, The Second Line.
Links:
[1] http://www.theroot.com/users/bryantterry
[2] http://www.theroot.com/print/826
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[12] http://www.theroot.com/id/45382
[13] http://www.secondlinebook.blogspot.com/
[14] http://newsite.xula.edu/
[15] http://www.amazon.com/Grub-Ideas-Urban-Organic-Kitchen/dp/1585424595
[16] http://www.theroot.com/views/eco-soul-kitchen-chocolate-pecan-pudding-pie-nut-crust
[17] http://www.theroot.com/views/sweet-sweetbacks-salad-recipe-eco-soul-kitchen
[18] http://www.theroot.com/views/uncle-dons-double-mustard-greens-roasted-yam-soup
[19] http://www.theroot.com/category/views-tags/eco-soul
[20] http://www.theroot.com/category/views-tags/new-orleans
[21] http://www.theroot.com/views/Culture
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[23] http://www.theroot.com/views/audrey-smaltz
[24] http://www.theroot.com/views/eddie-longs-coronation
[25] http://www.theroot.com/views/top-5-whitney-houston-performances