Pancake Tuesday
A bag of colored beads donkey-swings over concrete
A neon grill pronounces nothing
A patch of dirty cotton lies on the grass
Next to a half painted white wall
The buzzards have been flying low these days
And the robins have been owning this street
Though there is quiet tonight
As the sun slips into a postcard of the Gulf.
This is the last night for the Christians to have a pancake
Not many know this
It is a forgotten music
This business about a celebration
To usher in a negation
About eating a pancake lustily on one day
To announce not eating it on the next
Why is this night different from all other nights?
In his mint green shirt and gold bracelet
Russell stands ready to greet me
He takes me to a booth
The waitress takes my order
While the batter hits the grill
I bend over a book by Lorca
Mardi gras beads scrape against the edge of the table
In Search Of Duende.
After dark I pass by a bone-white box between two houses
The local shrine of the Mother of Charity
Hemingway gave her his 1954 Nobel Prize
For writing The Old Man And The Sea
Nuestra Señora de la Caridad del Cobre
Who walks on the road of stormy seas
And whose son lives in a little golden box
With satin walls
On the south side of town.
~Bill Rogers
May 2011