A storm had knocked out the power for an hour
And battery-powered plastic faux candles
Lined the front of the small stage for footlights
While forty or fifty neighbors in their sixties
And seventies listened to the acoustic duo
Perform Dave Van Ronk's "Losers":
From Ghengis Khan to the Fuller Brush Man
They're just a bunch of losers like me...
The friends and neighbors applauded
And hooted, then opened more wine
On the break. A six-year old girl and a four-year old
Boy chased each other around a cottonwood tree
Outside while the clouds purpled over Zion
And the wind picked up again, a little lightning
In the distance. When the next set began
It was time for the Blues, and the guitar-picker
Deadpanned of one song's long-gone composer,
"He died in prison, as all good child-preachers do."
When the power went on, another cheer.
Body sat in a folding chair, thinking of Van Ronk's
God, and nodded with the rain.
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