Grateful For the Dead
"...a band beyond description,
like Jehovah's favorite choir."
Though I'm only old enough to be
Some hippie's kid brother
I've been to hear the music play the band
Times more than a few.
I liked the carnival atmosphere,
Smokeladen from passage of pipes,
Filling the thrumming concert sites
Wherever they appeared,
Everyone dance-happy, everybody friends
When Jerry's Kids and their kids
Got together for awhile.
I remember one of the last times,
A summer's night breezily warm,
The day shedding its bright heat
Drawing slowly down in orange light, purple clouds
While a multicolored audience drew itself together
As a living kaleidoscope for initiate eyes.
I watched one buxom girl,
Clad solely in a blue cotton dress
Wrapped like a mist around her,
Dancing trippingly 'round and 'round through the crowd,
Spinning and hopping,
Lovely as some windblown flower.
They played their usual four-hour set,
One song melting into another
Weaving melodic tapestries
Waxing better the more they went on,
'Til old Bobby Weir got to screaming out
For sheer joy.
Well, I say you can keep your Metal Boys,
Your screeching Fly-By-Nighters,
Deride if you will such nostalgic things.
These gents survived to play their hearts out
From the Summer of Love to the Spring of c.d.s,,
From tiedye n' jeans to Music Video
- Yet still, head-to-head, they could bury
The best the newbies could hope to show;
Could play 'em right into the ground.
Myself, I find it hard to see
What was so funny about a generation dedicating itself to love.
Give me a band like this any day,
Who can draw out well-tailored bankers
To pass and puff,
Fire up forty-year-old mothers-of-five
To dance in place for two hours, enthralled -
Yes, I'm grateful for the Dead, my friends.
They'll always be all right by me.
Copyright © William Masonis | Year Posted 2008
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