Flowers for Vera November 1, 2006
Posted by The Typist in Citizen Journalism, Corps of Engineers, Flood, Garden District, Hurricane Katrina, Katrina, New Orleans, NOLA, Uptown, We Are Not OK.Tags: Vera Smith
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Above is the memorial to Vera Smith, who died at the corner of Jackson Avenue and Magazine Street on Tuesday, Aug. 31 2005, the victim of a hit-and-run driver during the frantic evacuation of New Orleans after the Flood. Her body lay on the street for days until neighbors built a rough tomb for her from found bricks and buried here (see photo below). If you happen to stop by soon and the mums are still there, please water them.
or at these independent New Orleans bookstores:
Odd Bits of Life in New Orleans 
There lies Vera Smith
Who with a car was hit
By frantic behavior
Death was her Savior
She lay in the Louisiana heat
Under a plain white sheet
For all the world to see
How cruel people can be
-Ole Blue The Heretic
She lay on the sidewalk
As people pointed and talked
About the body that lay
On the sidewalk they would say
She did not deserve to die
On a side walk and lie
Broken and ignored
While in the city water poured
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The Tsunami of St. Claude Avenue
The Tsunami of St. Claude Avenue
The sudden in rush took them as they were.
The tsunami of St. Claude Avenue
left them in twisted postures of Pompeii,
gathered beneath the rafters of a shack,
infants clutched to breast, curled up in corners,
breathless at last with no where left to run.
It swallowed them whole, then spit them back out
like a snake’s breakfast, all unwanted bits
left to bloat and bleach and wash up at last
on the brown avenues in back of town.
Some hung from trees as their grandfathers did,
strange fruit that sprung up from a poisoned soil.
Separate but equal triumphed at last.
Indiscriminate and leveling death
made them one with the matrons of Lakeview
and left the men of St. Charles Avenue
like Ozymandius, lords of misrule
over the ruins of a lost kingdom.
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It really was “separate but equal”. I never realized that she was hit by a car or that it was on Magazine. I don’t wander over here nearly enough!
In this particular case, the poetic comments, which might be lost to so many who fail to click on them, have perhaps become the very best part of the post!
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Ya gotta luv a man that can write cool poetry. Good job!
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How could a law exist that would keep loved ones from burying the dead? Yes the victim of a crime, but it was a bigger crime to have to endure what lied ahead for Vera and her family.
I paid for Vera to be brought home, to her family. It was a gift to a family that loved Vera very much.
Glad to see that she is remembered.
Chuck
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