Saturday afternoon

Saturday afternoon
yellow clouds rising in the noon
acid, incense and balloons...
Jefferson Airplane


lazing away the middle day
of a long-overdue three-day weekend

i recognized the bicycle would not
be oomphed to the bosque today

but such a promising sunny day
commanded the sinews outdoors nevertheless

so even with the heat of the day mostly past
off we trudged

me
the mando
and a journal

to Roosevelt Park

____________

having invested most of the day
in two primary activities

reading Phil Lesh's quite lucid recollections
of life in the sixties while forming the Grateful Dead

and several hours of napping

the three block walk to the park
offered the distinct pleasure
of a kinesthetic experience of movement

yet it was seeing the three sets of balloons
at the apartment complex on the way
offering immediate occupancy

just a tad brighter in their multicolored hues

that led me to realize
that i was ever so perceptibly
in an altered state

____________

i needn't be too surprised at this

not only was this my first three day weekend in months
hence i was probably more relaxed and sleep-fulfilled
than in recent memory

but the Dead had been a huge formative influence for me
their music poetry and psychedelic social explorations
near the center of my initial adventures
of adolescent autonomy in the world

still it was a welcome surprise
to notice near some of the balloons
a truck cab filled with wrapped baskets

and rather than just register the data
feel!

and what i felt was a kind of delightful wonder
at how this truck's fellow human
might be feeling about whatever side job
these baskets may have represented

as well as a warmth of connection
at all the side jobs you and i and everyone else
have ever taken on
to meet a few individual and collective needs

and i felt a mild exuberance
at the way the world really
works

_________

the park was sparsely populated

after yesterday's cold blast
apparently others were as taken by surprise as me
by the need to not be huddled in our february shelters

i sat relatively out of the way of the few disc golfers
celebrating the odd forty-foot chain-crashing putt
and mourning a little too much tree love

pulled out the mando
and accompanied by brisk breeze
rendered stirring vocally-pleasant performances
solos not excluded

of cumberland blues
uncle john's band
and wild horses

and in my unselfconsciousness
a newfound non-contortedness
celebrated a willingness
to just let the music be

_______________

feeling both free
and exalted by the growing chill of the wind
i remembered San Francisco

whose mixed up seasons
must have meant a few of those beatific be-ins
were accompanied by such

endogenous and exogenous factors

and as the sun bowed to the wind
i said so long
grateful to the compassionate
company of bare and vibrant trees

and walked home
up the maple street hill
backwards

to call on different muscle groups

like we did climbing those steep hills
on Fillmore in San Francisco