On the Levees of Time

ON THE LEVEES OF TIME… (APROPOS WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE) When the levees broke…when the levees broke… When the levees broke… When the levees broke the world awoke From a submerged reality Flowing beneath the bridge over trouble waters. The copious tears of the domed encampment Could not wipe away the fears Nor cleanse the minds of lost hopes floating In the midst of the mockery I see: This land, this water, this ransacked America! Shame is a white cloud reflected from the dark Side of the moon; Guilt seeks its own level; but the Lord said: Vengeance is Mine… Indeed to err is human; to forgive divine… Mercy on we mere mortals! When the levees broke…when the levees broke… When the levees broke… Stitches that bound the veil and scale of justice Were ripped at the seam; And it seemed that the bowels of hell Loosened their pregnant flow of terror And unseen evil revealed itself to an intoxicating world Drunk with deception. No receding water can was away the pain; The level of grief remains. Like a wrinkle in time, minds of survivors flood With memories of Middle Passage Crossing; deferred dreams of festering bloated bellies Of the dreamers; dreamers of a new Diaspora; Dreamers drifting on the rafts of new leanings Indeed we shall rise again from the depths Of hell’s waters; Sail on the tides of new beginnings; no political anchors Nor the barges of time Can hold us in check or prohibit our rising. At our soaked wake, we shall keep a ripened vigil; The shadowed veil shall ever be rent. All shall be naked before the world; truth revealing Its self like a burning bush; And we shall come over into a new dwelling: a city Not made by hands of corruption. And the Orleans of our beginnings here shall not fade From these memories: When the levees broke…when the levees broke… When the levees broke.