That Night On Bourbon Street
I turned toward Canal and walked down to the corner of Dumaine and Bourbon. Bourbon
Street was blocked off as it is at night and an enormous crowd filled the streets as far as I could see. Music from an outdoor concert three blocks away washing over the crazed
revelers. I love to watch people and this was a fantastic place to do so.
Then I noticed someone who seemed beautifully and oddly out of place. Tucked back against one of the old brick buildings, was a fresh-faced young woman sitting in a folding chair behind a tiny, makeshift desk. She was surrounded by the dense crowd literally falling out of the open doors of the burgeoning Cafe Lafitte in Exile across the street. Revelers high above on the balcony called those in the packed street below. Before her sat an old-fashioned manual typewriter. Most people her age have never even seen a manual typewriter (or an electric one for that matter), much less used one. Taped to the edge of her “desk” was a small cardboard sign with a hand written message: “Poet for Hire.”
This was an unexpected sight to say the least. She was not a “street person,” along with the fortune tellers or street performers around Jackson Square. She seemed serious and vulnerable sitting there. I ventured over and asked what she was doing. She said she was a writer and this was her practice – to write publicly. I asked how it worked and she replied that I could tell her something I had been thinking or maybe some idea or a word of interest and she would write a poem for a donation. I immediately dug into my wallet while telling her what I had been thinking during my walk following my solitary dinner. She seemed to understand. Then, she took out two small pieces of paper, sandwiched an equal sized piece of carbon paper between them (who uses carbon paper anymore?), rolled it into the typewriter, and began. I excused myself to fight my way through the crowd to use the bathroom at Lafitte’s, partially so I would not be standing over her as she wrote. Never mind that she was surrounded by thousands of very raucous people, but now we had a kind of spontaneous and unspoken intimacy that required respect.
When I returned, she was still writing, so I sat down next to her on the sidewalk amid the empty Red Bull cans and scattered beer bottles. I just sat in silence as she tapped away amid the chaos. In a few minutes I heard the unmistakable sound of paper being extracted from the roller of an ancient typewriter and she handed me my poem. Here is what she had written.
We party like pirates
who are going to be ghosts tomorrow
The streets are stained
with sweat and rain
The brick walls rent by the shifting earth
and in the fissure the hot green rot
of new life, licking at the flames
It is our pain
These gaping wounds
that make way for the river
that flows through us all
making us beautiful places to visit
Aching and crumbling
and crying make sweet breaking music
A trilling trumpet on the air:
One last drowning cry.
Erin Lierl
Bourbon Street, New Orleans
She had really heard me, and beyond that, she had penetrated my evening musings in a way I never expected. She took my first thought and moved it deeper and opened it further. This is what we hope to do for each other as spiritual friends. In this case, we had made a tiny, temporary island of connection in the rolling humanity and humidity of Bourbon Street. Aside from the content of the poem itself, this young woman had appeared mysteriously, in an unlikely place and time, and had touched me with her wisdom and compassion.
I walked back by her again later that night returning to my hotel. She was writing for herself amidst the even more inebriated crowd. I hoped to find her the next day...but she was gone.
May your day be filled with the spirit of The Big Easy...Beau B.
