Bethel, NY 8/15/98

I sought higher ground
and settled next to the totem
of Jerry, Jimi, and Janis
on a crest of the hillside.

Above me was the tented
Rock and Roll strip mall,
everything from tee-shirts
and crystals, to computerized
stereo sound systems and cell phones.

There were convenient ATMs
and credit cards accepted.
Buy a piece of flower power,
but don't sell your soul.

The Woodstock Nation
had come of age,
an attempt to balance its
moral ideology
with science and technology
and blend it with the realities
of commercialism and materialism.

And below the music played on
to the crowd that danced and swayed.

Melanie, Donavon, Rich,
Lou, Joni, and Pete,
sang of peace and love,
human rights and wrongs,
life in the gritty city,
spirituality and ecology.

Once again,
Sisyphus struggles to push
a boulder of manure up hill,
knowing it will roll
back down to the valley below,
and he smiles with hope
that from the seeds
of art and music, something
good will grow.