One hot summer I went to Dana Hall summer camp something or other.
Lots of Lights-off and Pottery and Indoor Crafts.
With someone playing a guitar in what seemed to me a Music “Pit”: A Tiny Orpheum
or some such;
with handfuls of little girls
just being taught
the chorus to:
You Can’t Always Get What You Want.
I remember it like yesterday.
A girl named Sarah in white pants that got so dirty from throwing clay and the day;
no big Teachers;
little Kate covered in paint;
No AC and smocks still on.
It reverberated on white walls– and some young man
told us what to sing.
And our knees all pointed towards one anothers’; and there was a ceiling fan so high
you couldn’t hear it.
And it was the time for naps, the time of noon, the time Older People slipped away.
It smelled of chalk and paint and heat and a bit of clay from earlier.
And that young guy; he didn’t smile, he just played a chord and
told us about this Song and played it:
was it what he knew? last generation’s Wonderwall?
Another fan purred somewhere;
The amphitheater was small.
We were in a cone
of echo and future
and all we ever had to say
was
‘You can’t always get
what you want.’
you can’t always get what you want.
YOU CAN’T always get what you WANT.
You can’t ALWAYS get what you want.
you Can’t always get what You Want…
you Can’t always get what you want.
you can’t ever get what you want.
You can’t always get what you want –
But if you try sometimes..
littlestorms 