"If You Have Built Castles in the Air”
Mardi Gras 2026: A mixed-media poem by Rosa Alemán
Morning light in New Orleans arrives slow,
like it’s listening first,
like the city is telling secrets
through steam rising off wet asphalt.
It slips across pavement still dripping
from water poured out of plastic orange barricades,
each puddle holding a trembling reflection
of balconies, wires, and a sky awakening.
Sunbeams catch beads tangled and dangling
from the muscled branches of old oaks
that have seen a century of revelry—
their bark black as coffee, furrowed with memory.
This Zulu morning
I stand at the corner
of Jackson Avenue
and Simon Bolivar,
where the air smells of brass and king cake vodka,
diesel and damp earth,
and the promise of something bright
rounding the bend.
My camera in one hand,
the other lifted in the air,
reaching for coconuts—
gifts from warriors and rascals, Black royalty
who reign in grass skirts and white gloves,
who turn satire into splendor,
who toss relics of history glittered in brown and gold
like planets spinning above our heads.
A brass band blows notes
that sway and rock toward us.
Horns flashing like polished suns.
Somebody’s auntie in the street, dancing.
Her shoes scuff rhythm in concrete,
her arms thrown open like shutters.
The woman beside me belly-laughs and claps
with her whole body, sequins trembling at her wrists.
Purple, yes. Gold, yes. Green—
colors thick as velvet curtains.
Sequins stitched by maker hands,
each one a small, obedient star.
Feathers bend in southern heat,
an opera of black and purple plumes rising in blue—
costumes imagined in quiet rooms months ago,
now blaze against the morning sky.
If you have built castles in the air,
your work need not be lost—
I see them now cresting Jackson Avenue:
tigers of papier-mâché and mythic proportion,
float balconies brimming with masked kings,
moats of confetti and jazz.
Makers dreaming up towers at kitchen tables,
over sketches smudged with coffee rings and glitter dust.
They carved foam into lion busts,
welded scaffolds for dragons,
stitched whole constellations into capes
that billow like storm fronts towards St. Charles.
Once weightless imaginings,
now rumble on axles and chrome,
rolling fortresses of story drenched in sweat,
proof that vision can grow bones.
I watch a young boy climb his father,
a small sneaker kicks up quick over a steady shoulder,
his finger pointed toward a prize on the horizon,
eyes fixed for the perfect shot of wonder.
A stuffed flamingo arcs through sunlight
pink as a fresh bloom against blue.
He catches it midair,
holds it high like a trophy.
Wrists flick golden beads
in dancing tangles.
Elders post up in folding chairs,
legs firm on the ground.
Old friends sharing trays of crawfish,
shells split red and steaming—
trading stories between floats,
each tale salted and passed down.
There was a time
when Zulu began as satire—
Black men in grass skirts,
mirroring a pageant that barred them entry.
An exaggerated royalty,
mocking exclusion with gut wrenching laughter.
But satire grew roots.
Roots split pavement.
Tradition became legacy,
passed hand to hand,
coconut after coconut,
drum by drum.
I pan my camera across a sea of black painted faces,
gold dusted cheekbones,
green shadowed eyes,
purple twilight skin.
A bright mesh of plumage presses close.
Feathers and flowers, beads and charms
fall from floating castles in the air—
kingdoms once held in thought alone.
The drums arrive first in my rib cage,
pounding my chest, rearranging breath in me.
Street band marshals sweep us back to crowded sidewalks,
white gloves flashing command.
Another rolling band thunders forward—
snare tight as heartbeat,
bass drum deep as river current—
and we vibrate as one living membrane.
A mother holds a child on her hip.
They sway in constellations of purple and green.
Only her older child, haloed in gold,
meets my lens as I frame their glow.
Gaze steady and luminous—
beyond a corner store sign advertising king crab by the pound.
Castles no longer stranded midair,
but standing, radiant, in the street.
Here, on Jackson and Simon Bolivar,
the makers’ dreams have touched the jagged streets of New Orleans—
anchored in asphalt,
touching earth at last.
A soul breaks free singing like an ancient soothsayer
“If you have built castles in the air, put foundations under them.”
Tap along to that old beat and see
how the city rises to meet you.
