To think that I was alive when this was written. To think that Mingus was alive. And William Matthews, too. Happy National Poetry Month; may your day be filled with the digestion of experience!
(Poem scanned from “The Open Door: 100 Poems, 100 Years of Poetry Magazine,” edited by Don Share and Christian Wiman.)
panache, perhaps 
And the band played on. Right it did. And it does. Brilliant.