Untitled Landscape In the French Quarter

Untitled Landscape from the French Quarter

Amidst the shallow tune and the drunkard’s half-masked fear, that portal scalded robbing orbs, to set my mind alight as the firefly who screams flame at the bottle. Its absoluteness eyed me, as if to say, “How ‘bout it?” And of its pocked marked face, an unnamed land, those glittered grays spoke of a world between, where all that is will forever shine sublime till the end of days.

Half eclipsed, the white sun that blurs this bygone lazy twilight defines thick lines, those fingers of wood erect in the chill of murky waters; of which the pooling depth is naught disturbed, save for a single bird who bathes his feathers in the mire.

Is it wrong for me to secretly fear him? The Crane of this swamp, pagan of old, who engages eternally in his balancing act amongst the tangled organs of the trees. Doubtless, he enchants such a place where waters stand so still.

Yet gone was the small voice of caution, to the spell it held me, entranced. And gazing into that silent world, I toured from a distance, flaunting my curled lip in a cheer long gone stagnant, while that street band gaily thrummed its discord behind. They smile knowingly, the crook'd tooth grin of New Orleans, but such was their way that they did not presume the sense to stop me.

I had done something stupid.

In a moment the Witch-Bird of the swamp let a twitch of the eye break the mirror portal, and the knowledge cut me bare, to fall as a leaf at the feet of gray giants. I cried out, a child whose precious thing had been taken and he came to me, the Crane. How visible was my trembling spell?

But he just stood and watched, until his silence bade me speak.

“Do you feel a momentary merriment, comforted by the baubles of reds, blues, and yellows from the recent Mardi Gras?”

He signaled no.

“Then do you feel despondent upon arriving at a place where the tones are absolute and the waters so tranquil?”

He signaled no.

Confused and angry I screamed violence, to which the Crane issued from soft black lips a wispy wind to carry to my ears, “be still child, and breathe.”

Calmly heaving, sun tickled stones supporting, the smell of the beignet’s sugar melting in the summer heat; the gentle popping, the ego acclimation, such a sensation to stop me cold and leave taught lines eased.

And I knew the hue of this particular gray, and I saw how he cleaned his feathers in futility.