Spring has Sprung.

Spring, morning is still,

air is fresh,cool, sunny is today's promise. The journey is the center of all , the bike the vehicle, places are fixtures. I feel life around me, not just today's but the past and the future. I absorb the fixtures, inhale them , process them , squeeze every ounce of life out of them, make them part of my inner self, my soul, my mind, I make them what I"m living for at that precise moment. Focus, focus, meld with the lives around me.

The blacktop street is smooth, worn ,

tired from carrying the weight of

civilization , it's has life , I too travel it, this chalkboard of the city, I leave my life's weight and gather those left before me.

The French Quarter has life abundant, old and new, a young lady on a bike passes me , I assess her, checkered sundress, red dyed hair, tattoo of a black rose on her right calf, green tennis shoes, a metal loop in her lower lip and long strapped black bag flopping off her shoulder.

She rides with direction and intent,

where could she be going and why.
Where has she been and why?

I take a moment to fabricate her life,

I fit her into a box of my liking, her life fills my needs for her to exist,

onward to the next fixture. I visit the

once home of Tennessee Williams,

his life still gives off an energy there,

and if you listen, you'll hear Marlon Brando yelling "Stella" and Liz Taylor calling Burl Ives "Big Daddy". Just off the corner of

Royal and Ursuline my eye is struck by a man perched against a rough, beige colored stucco wall, his hands are behind his back and his left foot against the wall, his cocoa tinted complexion is handsomely favored by his deep blue dyed Nehru shirt,his baggy linen trousers once white now spottily stained, he gazes upward yet his eyes are shielded by his straw panama hat, so what story is behind that bushy mustache. Is he a leftover from last night, does he work nearby, is he visiting, hanging out,

on the prowl, laying low, people watching, waiting for someone,

how will I ever know his reason for being ? Perhaps he's spent his entire life on the low wild side, picking up thrills and dollar bills when and where they presented themselves. He peeks at me with one eye as I ride past, just a glimpse to access my life in a quick thought. He and I are both bookends, markers, drawers in a chest, legs on a chair, unnoticed yet integral to a panoramic picture of life in this city.

A tourist couple crosses the intersection as I wait. It was "Beryl I ate too much corn and beef " and her husband "Ralph Ive never been off the farm ", they were obvious in tourist shorts, New Orleans T- shirts,

designer flip flops, straw hats, cameras, and a naivety that made me envious.

Ralph's eyes followed me as I passed through, for 2 seconds he thought how great it must be to be me.

For those 2 seconds he was right.

later,

gary