September 4th 2020
Squelching beneath the underground
Through a darkness with many meanings
Leaning up against a new sense of adventure, reawakened
A place to be one with nature
Deep in the fracture of a broken city
Known as New Orleans
I rinse away a stagnation
Born from staying in and twiddling my thumbs
My tribe and I
Subject to this very same strange ride
Still, we make time for curiosity and fun
A fearless kind flight
Instead of waiting around on the world to finally open back up
Instead of just sitting here and waiting to die
We crawl beneath broken bridges
Scampering across military ships
Casting shadows upon our former selves, reinvented
Searching for signs and secrets
Some kind of washed up missile-styled relic
Forgotten ships
Take to their final resting place
Like an old dog with no new tricks
And I walk through this maze of life
Tracing my fingers against fractured columns
Splintered
Water logged and rotting
In their effervescent beauty
Ceilings have caved in
Far too broken to ever return to what they were before
I feel the cry of my own lone wolf
Howling out into the darkness
Or perhaps that was just a whimper
As a lone beaver pays tribute to my small discovery
Then disappears back into its dark waters without a trace
For we are all a different kind of animal
Here in this uncovered place
As my boots squelch full of mud and water
I look down and pay witness
To transparent plants
That are, like somebody’s daughter, just trying to grow amidst the darkness
A sought after sense of stability
Whilst being moved around by the constant tides
Barely able to take root
Given just enough light to barely survive
And I can relate to their quiet struggle
For I too am just trying to grow out here
Amidst the powerful currents, the graffiti & rubble.
We eventually make our way inside of an old military base
That’s been left, abandoned without care
Graffiti everywhere
Break and Enter
Have no fear
For I make my own story here
And it will be worthy of sharing
Room by room
We infiltrate
Passing through the empty spaces of what once was
Offices, desks, chalk boards with chalk still pressed upon their faces
Discarded clothes, fractured windowsills
Murmuring signs of life in inconspicuous corners
The entire building is but a ghost
We make our way to the rooftop
Climbing ten floors high
And with an insatiable appetite
I scale the rusty water tank
Ascending to the highest of the heights
My heart thumping, adrenaline pumping
The city beneath me, gently unfolding
And I feel God damn alive.
We hang
We climb
We document and read
Singing into the acoustics of a time forgotten water tower
The power of the Louisianan sun browns our skins
The warm breeze envelopes me as I exhale
The city; growing and sprawling
Demanding
‘Open Your Eyes’
And, lit as fuck, I open up
And let my soft slumber go
Whispers of needles burned in the fire awhile ago
Swore an oath to leave it all behind him forever
The shadows of our former selves stand back to back
And, leaving behind our sleeping ghosts,
We simply let it all go
For up there on that water tower
At the highest of the heights
My tribe and I
Become the royalty that we have always known ourselves to be
Two Kings & a Queen
And only this city, entrusted with the whispers our former stories,
Knows of our secrets
As well as our possibilities
And whether the world will ever resume a sense of normality or not
Whether the mud will ever come out of our shoes
Or whether we must start from scratch or buy anew
Whether the world be flat or be it round
Full of whites or blacks
Silences or sounds
I still count my blessings for my placement here
And, with eyes wide open
I pay tribute to the jewels within it that I have found.
April Lee Fields
Photography by April Lee Fields