Parking blues

Those with money, the shoppers over there, the businesses, can find a place to park,

Happy to pay $2/hour for the privilege of parking in front of what they seek, 

We, the people, in the adjacent, rather crowded, little houses, some 

Rundown dwellings will be overrun by the Audis, the BMWs, the Ford trucks,

and all the other assorted cars driven by the precious students, 

who install themselves and their discarded lunch detritus

onto our streets for 50% less, from 7 to 3, or 4, or 5. 

My disabled neighbor will scour the neighborhood for a place to park her 

slightly dented, faded Prius, alternately distraught and resigned,

Watching the students throw their empty Red Bull cans into her carefully tended garden,

and the neighbor who is ferrying her husband, who no longer knows where he lives, 

Will find her small driveway blocked, because the Almighty City does not allow

NO PARKING signs, she sobs as she calls the Police for the 17th time that week.

 

Panique a Bamako avec Warren Nash

It may be early to start reading Panique a Bamako

But it's not too early to start speaking French with Warren

Or

For that matter, my son, the dad, the one with whom I've been writing texts in French

For about forever.

My daughter is still angry that I did not teach her French even though I really didn't speak it then,

Those days when I could hardly speak my native tongue, raising kids on my own

Just trying to get through the day

But this is different, Panique a Bamako can be read at leisure, like when I sat at the 

Feet of my own grandmother pretending to read, love is written in its

Own language.