βTHE DAY AFTER MARDI GRAS / March 2021
~ Final Draft ~
Dedication
Lawrence Ferlingetti, San Francisco
City Lights Publisher and Book Store Owner
1919 ~ 2021
... the last survivor of that generation ...
GIOAVANNA TAVERNI,
| L'Indiependente |
β³πβ³
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| L'Indiependente |
LEJ's Louisiana,
Yours Truly in a Swamp
π· πΎ
by
Leonard Earl Johnson
of
Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana
March 2021
Β© 2021, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved
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"Yes, Virginia, there was no Mardi Gras this year!" L. A. Norma said to the empty banquette along Bourbon Street.
"Bacchus spent this Carnival alone and sober in some brightly lit corner of temperance."
π·
"Mayor Latoya Cantrell, square-shouldered and masked, done clasped closed the gate," our pedicab driver replied.
β
The Way We Were
~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~
March 2021
The Day After Mardi Gras
Ash Wednesday
and the Forty Days of Lent
BY Leonard Earl Johnson
Β© 2021, Leonard Earl Johnson,
All Rights Reserved
~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~
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March 2021
The Day After Mardi Gras
Ash Wednesday
and the Forty Days of Lent
BY Leonard Earl Johnson
Β© 2021, Leonard Earl Johnson,
All Rights Reserved
~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~
On Ash Wednesday all over Louisiana, Carnival lifted its joyous mantle and left Lent's ashen smudge in its place.
At Saint Louis Cathedral, business suits stood
cheek-by-jowl with crimson capes and smeared-lipstick ladies awaiting priests dressed in the Vestments of Sorrow, smearing The Sign of The Cross on celebrant foreheads, with thumbs dipped in the ashes of last year's Palm Sunday Palms. Outside,
Zamboni-like street sweepers washed
The City.
Inside, we harbored doubts,
The City.
Inside, we harbored doubts,
but none whatsoever about this ceremony.
Our candle burns at both ends.
COVID or not, to ashes we are returning.
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| Banana Tree Photo credit: Deb Kohler |
Should you need a reason to be suspicious of evangelical powers in politics consider that fact.
β
"In such order we find sad Truths"
~ L. A. Norma.
~ L. A. Norma.
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**
βββ
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| Clearing the Liturgical Air |
"The Gregorian Calendar," L. A. Norma explains to a bewildered tourist sharing our pedicab, "what with Easter changing with the moon, is none too accurate!
"For instance,
take leap year!"
π§§
Easter Sunday marks Lent's end,
and is also a ceremony to welcome Spring.
Easter Sunday marks Lent's end,
and is also a ceremony to welcome Spring.
It was borrowed by the marauding legions of Rome, from religions they happened upon that had come along long before Christianity took its show on the road.
It may be the oldest human celebration, and it is calculated (or miscalculated) in today's Canon Law with instruments crafted from faith in suffering and suspicion of pleasure.
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| Beansprout |
Lenten fasting repairs Winter's damage and Carnival's excess, and prepares us for Spring's rebirth.
Like the bean sprout and the jazz man say,
"Blow the roof off the sucker!"
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π
π π π
‘
π΅
πΊπ·
π
It has been a cold Lent in Louisiana this year, with sunny icy mornings, and a warm place in the kitchen to read Internet newspapers and sip coffee.
The live oaks outside our dormer windows are a soft young green. Live oaks do not lose their leaves till Spring's new buds arrive (as followers of JFK conspiracies know). Then they change from old dark green to young soft green almost overnight.
Today soft-green peeks through the snow, and old alligators lie on the banks in whatever sun we can find, dreaming of Easter baskets and Spring.
Today soft-green peeks through the snow, and old alligators lie on the banks in whatever sun we can find, dreaming of Easter baskets and Spring.
LEJ.org
π΄π
π΄π
(A lesser version of this story first appeared in 2004)
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Copyright, 2021, Leonard Earl Johnson
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Copyright, 2021, Leonard Earl Johnson
all rights reserved
For more L. E. J.'s Yours Truly in a Swamp go to
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.JPG) Subscribe@LEJ.org  If you wish to read any month's column go to www.LEJ.org anytime. They are posted on the first of each month and polished for the next few years.~ ~ ~ LEJ's Louisiana, Yours Truly in a Swamp is a monthly e-column @ www.LEJ.org, Hosted by GOOGLE BLOGGER, and historically at Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans, publication of the It is written by Leonard Earl Johnson of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Coming Next Month EASTER ON THE RIVER OF BOURBON STREET April 2021  click image for high resolution www.LEJ.org β Β© 2021 Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved. ~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~ βββ |
posted by LEJ's Louisiana | 12:24 AM
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