I saunter down
the lattice-shadow sidewalk,
Faulkner-style,
and the world abuzz
and the bees abuzz
and everything’s buzzing with power and glory.
Tiny figures and impossible shapes
line the windows,
line the keystones on my left.
They watch me sail by
but only from the corners of their eyes,
not wanting me to see them see me-
such voyeurs!
But I see them too:
Imprints of ivy,
Greek keys and dentils,
cherubs and pomegranates competing for plumpest.
I feel the history of these,
the unremembered day when an artisan,
or so he fancied,
sat to sketch
and carve
and mold
and fire
and receive evening
peanuts
and cut-glass high-balls from
a lipsticked lady
who both gently encourages and feigns impatience.
I see this worker-artist
with his beaming pride
as he beheld his light
and He saw that it was good.
I slide back to the now as I adore,
head tilted, both seeing and not seeing,
his love-light-handiwork
casting white magic spells
long after his children have passed,
as I shuffle down Q street
unhurried, unworried,
this dream-colored quarantine day.
And so it goes,
house to house,
a veritable hunt for painted eggs
tastefully and carefully hidden
in the tall reeds that are tall homes.
My own private Notre Dame,
reverently absorbing
the not-quite-gargoyles
(but almost as interesting)
(but exactly as deliberate),
mindful touches of grace
carefully tucked in
complete with lullaby
in softest sheets of earth-toned masonry.
And the gardens!
Who’d have thought
in the age of Insta
defiant yuppies
and yearning millennials
would plunge their polished, ringless fingers
into neat squares of dirt and snails
and raise through witchcraft
gaudy blooms and shiny leaves,
photosynthesized AF.
Here and here and here is a bloom
and here over here this one
big as yer head-
it’s valentine pink
coral
sunset
egg yolk
and taxicab
all in one shocking opus.
Her petals are legion,
so many crammed in,
a Bourbon Street Friday night.
It’s a shameless splurge,
opulent and extreme
like a Real Housewife but quiet.
Each petal is carefully torn tissue,
not quite tattered,
more lovingly done,
torn all the same.
Those random (not random)
petal edges
that slope and rise each one to paint
a Smoky Mountain horizon,
perfectly imperfect or so I’ve heard.
And before I notice
the sidewalk turns.
17th is here.
House by house,
bloom by bloom,
I gobbled it up:
a starry-eyed Pac-Man
on a magical block.
