Walt McDonald

Banjo Saturday Nights

Picking a mean, mad banjo
is half showing off, half teasing,
more rhythm than brain waves.
Old Uncle John was skinny and six-five,

half man, half rubber plant,
long fingers around a banjo's neck,
plinking tight strings and tapping
faster than dancers' feet.

Sprawled on a folding chair
in a ballroom or VFW hall,
Uncle John was all knees and neck
with a Stetson flipped back

to give him room, dueling head down
with a hot guitar, cowboys and wives
twirling each other, girls and boys
clapping time, watching Uncle John

at eighty playing the way God made him,
tickling the strings with thumb
and fingers, not many months to go,
but faster than our minds could grasp.