Holiday 1941

New Orleans

Stroll in the warm spring sun, the town is en féte.

Over there are flags flying. The tourist mind

Is poking into courtyards, finding things quaint,

Storing the post-card memory, the antique find.

Have you tasted the café brulot, the fish en papillotte,

Saluted the little Napoleon in a deep bowled glass?

Sat in darkness, lit by the blue flame of the Suzette,

What you came here to find, is it found at last?

Journey while you can to meet the perpetual spring.

Travel by air, by bus, slide in, in expensive car.

The cities wait you, the beaches, the polite hotels

Welcome you. Refugees from the cold, from no worse thing

Than boredom and the winter's long blustery spells.

Not fugitives yet from hunger or grief or war.