"Dancing With Katrina" by Geoffrey Philp

For this week’s Video Friday and the 600th post on this blog, here’s a poem livicated to Kalamu ya Salaam, who despite the disaster that was happening around him, continued with his valuable service to the community with e-drum.

Dancing with Katrina

For Kalamu ya Salaam

Paddling through New Orleans,

past a shotgun house up to its threshold

in brine, a dog, paws folded, waits

on the roof of his owner’s drowned

home, and stares across the river

at splintered houses in the shade

of pines, swaying in the wind

that keeled those sailboats

in the bay, leaning on each other

like partygoers after Mardi Gras,

when music filled the streets

like the laughter of those Creole

ladies, bright as Louis Armstrong’s horn,

that gave birth to this city,

dredged in the blues,

that hour by hour rises from her despair,

and puts on her favorite torn stockings,

so that when the waters go,

as they will,

she will be ready to work

as she has always worked

with style,

she will be ready to live

as she has always lived

with love,

she’ll be ready

to welcome all of God’s wayward

children into her arms again,

and dance with her stilettos in the mud.

September 10, 2005

Next week’s Video Friday will feature CM Clark’s “Learning to Drive.”

Have a great weekend!

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