a song for the sinking

In New Orleans,
Rain falls eternally
On streets named after Gods.

Street cars clang-clang
Dotted by sun speckles
Trickled through oak canopies.

Some people here are dim
Like the sulfurous, ashen head
Of a struck match.

Others effervesce.
But these are few.

I have longed for greater company.
And finding some,
Wanted none. Again.

Roots arthritically impose
Their knobby arms upon the concrete.
Elbowing for room to grow.

The cramping missisippi-
An aching arm.
Seeking for a stretch.

Subsidence.
Its everywhere.
Bridges seem to raise their feet from the road.

And every trace of Man
Is persistently erased.
If ever so slowly.

As we walk, our feet are sinking.
Our ambitions escape us as we trudge
toward antiquity.

The swollen Gulf
Encroaches
On the aged wine city
Of fear and of scorched holiness.

We know it doesn't matter.
By "it," I mean all -
We are lulled by heat and angels
As they strike their drum.

We are moved motionless.
Content to roll in and out of formation.
Like clouds or like continents.

I think of pelicans or of fish belly up in the bayou, for what, Gods know why.
-of sweat beads more plentiful than the plastic from china adorning every oak and powerline.
-of stillness so ominous, that urgency in the air causes branches to fall from the sky
hours before the wind could hue them from their joints;
As if to say, "I give up -
No longer can I hold this fear aloft."

The wind does come to kick the precient branches on the ground.
The water does wash down in part-
in part rising from unseen holes in the soil.

We remember quickly what will sink.
What will float.
What will rot.

Year after year the elemental toil
Erodes what we hold in our hearts -
What we will not relinquish.

What the thief cannot steal in one swipe
He will claim calmly in sizable pieces.

But that is the way it should be.
Not I nor you nor anyone here
Would give what will one day be taken.

No.
We seize tighter that
When we are shaken.