Bob Dylan in Concert at 77
/Gaby Bedetti
Some baby boomers doze in the dark hall;
others, grey or hairless, travel back,
flower children impatient for the sun to set.
He sings for 2,000 age-worn hippies
with faces like damaged tomatoes
the farmer’s market couple calls uglies,
but with death-rattle vocals he insists,
“don’t think twice, it’s alright.”
After his aw-shucks kind of bow,
we rise on throbbing feet.
Author’s Commentary: Sitting in the auditorium with almost all age-mates listening to songs from our youth was surreal. It felt like time travel in both directions at the same time. I was both young and old, in time and out of time.
Gaby Bedetti is Professor of English at Eastern Kentucky University, where she teaches Comedy as an Artistic Approach. Her poems have appeared in Asses of Parnassus, Spadina Literary Review, Down in the Dirt, and elsewhere. Every June, she enjoys posting a daily poem on the Lexington Poetry Month blog. With her spouse, she is translating Henri Meschonnic’s poems from the French. Find her work and art at https://gabriellabedetti.wordpress.com
