We envied you then
    Even after hearing the old black men in white shirts
    Cough into the whiteness of linen handkerchiefs
    Time and time again

    You drove them here on tour
    Through the towns that booked
    Bands whose names were new to us
    Preservation Hall you called it
    And we wondered how you preserved
    The flicker of life in those tired faces
    Or we did until they began to play
    We who had never heard the real thing

    Nothing could have been more real
    There in the old chapel
    Where the stars and bars obstinately waved
    Still above the boys at New Market
    A picture of the future sacrificed to the past

    How could you play there
    Under that flag and those circumstances
    How could you dance for joy
    Sousaphone and all
    Doing a soft shoe along the bass line
    Laughing at the irony of bringing real heroes to VMI
    Playing both the present and the past like a virtuoso

    We envied you and we loved them
    Lightly as they bore their power
    They did more than our gods
    Like discipline or revolution, patriotism or knowledge
    Moved us more in two hours than we'd moved in a lifetime
    Toward each other

    And in the end you led us
    Radicals and Keydets, professors and police
    As we danced among the hardwood pews
    Filled with a spirit more holy than we knew
    Loving the dance the music and each other
    Artists with you
    Drawing the face of time

Copyright © Cy Dillon, 2001.  All Rights Reserved.