Elegy

Sitting in an overstuffed leather armchair, watching a documentary
about Bob Dylan, but also about the 60’s, the ’63 march and
Martin Luther King Jr., Pete Seeger, Peter Yarrow
and Medger Evers and, though not explicitly, Phil Ochs, and
a generation, a movement, and protest and music and my heroes,
and the Newport Folk Festival where Johnny Cash and Joan Baez played.
Thinking about Ginsberg, the Beats and the cafes where everything began
and how sincerely all of them believed that they
could change the world (and did in their way).
Watching Pete Seeger speaking I’m reminded
of another documentary, screened at a protest in Georgia—
high school students interviewing him and not knowing he is an “influential singer.”
But mostly I’m thinking about Mel, who lent me the movie
and gave me a candy apple red guitar and taught me
about the blues and jazz and is dying of lung cancer.