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Packed my 92-year-old dad
Into the old Lansing-made black Cadillac
To see the Detroit Symphony play at Wharton
We’re dressed up at the red light of Waverly and Saginaw

This vital busy corridor
Once home to Schmidt’s Estes Furniture Leonard’s Appliances
A golf course with sledding hill
Sully’s Drive-In

Now this crossroad is a Plasma Center a closed Rite Aid and a fortressed Walgreens
Along with the many amateur drug dealers
Meth heads wandering with their hook hands out on corners
Holding cardboard signs Anything Will Help
Hair wild like bamboo shoots
Golf course long ago abandoned the hill fenced off
An automated carwash over Hole 13

Next to us rumbles a pickup truck
Two huge flags stuck up in the wind from the rack in back
One
A faded dirty American flag
The other
Blue and black FxxK Biden

Two fat hillbillies laugh it up in the cab
Blow their horn
Children from nearby cars learn how to read
Shame

This is the capital city of Michigan

Wharton is jammed with suits and gowns
White-tapped graduation caps
The theater a carpet canyon of chatter

Next to the baton-poking Maestro from Italy
Stands a blond violin soloist with a sassy haircut
Red dress and red lips
A fire roaring to the center of those seated companions
Stringing and preening around her

She dips and weaves her wild bow under her chin
For 35 minutes of solo flame-throwing

At the end as we stand and bravo
I look over to my dad
He is weeping

“Are you ok Dad?”

“It’s just so magnificent what humans can do
And this will probably be my last symphony
And I was able to spend it with you.”

My mouth curls

I wonder whether this might be the last symphony
For any of us.

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