Mass of Blues

(Disclaimer: Poems are best read aloud. This one is inspired by a recent Patty Griffin/Buddy Miller concert at the House of Blues.)

Buddy lifts his best acoustic above his head

toward the stained glass.

It's a cliche to call it an offering but at that moment

I was willing to sacrifice with him.

Patty swings low on chords and they paint meaning

with yodels and riffs.

It was my thought to take the hurt he feels, this man next to me,

roll it up in my hands

and throw it upward.

It would careen toward the heavens of who-knows-what religion.

Maybe the winds up there would know how

to speed up the sad,

slow down the good.

In the crowd we sway as if to build momentum

toward letting it all out. Alley oop!

Being here sets us loose, a confession in applause,

in the smiles the spotlights show.

A lower case gospel for the skeptics.

Willing to bow to Buddy who bows only to the glass above him.

Because the light comes in,

and in that is something we all believe in.