Hearing the music of the Chatham City Band

Background:
While on my holiday recently in Cape Cod (see http:TobyBakerSparklingStories.blogspot.com) I was sitting on a park bench on a sunny afternoon in the Chatham City Park.  A woman, sitting on a nearby bench, was snapping photos of the bandshell.  It was rather scenic so I took a photo, too.

Whit Tileston Bandshell in Chatham Park, Cape Cod

Quietly she whispered to me, "That's my son.  He's playing the tuba."
"Oh," I said.  I squinted and there, in the dark shadows of the band shell was a young man, but I didn't see a tuba.
"My son," she said, "is emotionally disabled."
I nodded in understanding.
"He once saw a performance of the Chatham City Band and was very taken with the tuba players so today he is there, playing the tuba."
I still didn't see a tuba.
"It's really a saxophone slung over his shoulder."
"Pretty creative," I said.
Her face clouded over as she must have noticed some slight change in her son's behavior.  "Oh, I think the people getting out of their car in the parking lot behind me are frightening him."  Quickly she walked to the bandstand.
As I sat there I soon heard the whistled refrains of "Some Enchanted Evening" and saw her son emerge from the shadows, marching to the refrain as he "played his tuba."  I see that he's wearing a band hat and she hands him a blazer, his  "band jacket," and has found a stick to use as a conductor's baton.  Soon I heard the refrain of "76 Trombones" as he marches back into the bandshell.
As I sat there I was inspired both by a mother so dedicated to the needs of her son that she would find clothing to resemble a band uniform and bring him to an empty band shell on a quiet afternoon to enable him to "play in his band."  And, I was moved by the courage of one young man to sling a saxophone over his shoulder and bravely play the "tuba"--enough to write this poem.

In the Chatham City Band

I see a figure, quiet, shadowed, standing in the back

of the Whit Tileston Chatham City Bandshell.

An instrument, I thought a saxophone, is now a tuba

as he oom-pahs to the march.

Jauntily he take a bow, and pulls his cap down low

and follows all the musicians

down the stairs and out into the green.

"Some Enchanted Evening" whistles up to me

and I see the director, stick in hand,

point to the tuba player

love so blazened

that even I could

hear the music of the Chatham City Band--

and the tuba player in the back.