The first thing I heard as I came around the corner was the sounds of The Neo Collective trio www.neojazz.net
this was before I saw the produce. Today was a gorgeous almost spring day, great skies right temperature & organic foods.
I purchased pumpkin bread, curried couscous & blackeye peas salad from one vendor. Then 3 types of pepper jelly, chow chow (a Louisiana relish) pickled green tomatoes that were to die for and organic,free range eggs from Mr. Cal Crops from chicken he raises.
And then I headed home but before I got to the corner the first line of a poem popped in my head. The thought startled me as I've not been that terribly inspire to write any poetry this year sans one back a several months ago.
It happened because I watched the bass guitarist who happened to be a woman deeply immersed in creating sounds in her head, lost in her own world of sounds.
The last time I wrote something from my If Jazz was a Color series was a poem called the "Sounds of the Men" in 2000 watch a jazz brunch. In fact I paid a nod to it in this poem.
Amazing what healthy food, good weather and change can do!
Until I Saw That Face
By Jacquelyn Hughes Mooney (c)12
Until I saw that face
I always thought that deep
powerful
engrossing...
mesmerizing can't get enough of that feeling that comes from jazz
was relegated from that place...
that place
that secret society that held the sounds of the men.
It made me fall in love again
for that 100 thousandth time
with the face of New Orleans.
Just when I had enough
Really enough of
that dark side
that black hole
that keeps springing up at the most inopportune tie
From the gut cramping of near shattered souls that can ever seem to come clean
not unlike that blackened mold & stench out of the intestines of Katrina winds.
My patience had worn thin..
I wanted to run until that highway ran out
just to get away from that surreal vibe.
But then...
like the taste of calamondian oranges made into marmalade
the sweetness and the the sour-ness
I saw in that face
I saw in that face
that face...
that face...
And I fell in love all over again
for the zillionth time...
For the very last time
So I say..
With the face of New Orleans
All rights reservedJHM12-21-12(c)
