Banjo Picker & Fiddle Contest

They come from all over the place:
songs, fiddles, jugs, storytellers,
blankets, hippies, all that bluegrass,
to the canyon and Camp Wildwood
to compete for a t-shirt or

a joint. For a day, a weekend
they raise money for their cause—
NPR, because it plays folk,
is semi threatening to the Man.
People play ‘til their karma’s clean

and then sing to fill their empty
hats with homemade bread and weed or
two cold Buds and a lay under
the sycamore trees. All day long
stoned men stub loose dirt into clouds,

ladies clap and snap their fingers
like belly dancers, their naked
kids spinning in the mottled sun
with lizards and tree frogs under
the waterfall made from a hose.