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BUSKER*
Standing near the cross-walk.
The acoustics aren't great
yet you hear it
so far away,
this soaring, slithering melody,
the harmonies, like the city,
rich with unexpected combinations
—odd, really, that it is so harmonious.
The song walks through your veins like streets,
the notes curl around you
like the second or third day of Creation,
song with no use, no cure, no bounds.
The voice is sweet and fit for stage or fame,
but the busker stays (oh, why?), with this fragile music,
for the folks emerging from the underground, making their way.
No one listens, they walk by, they cross,
themselves or in bunches to the other side of the road,
but the singer sees them, sees all,
hears their inner songs,
their silent music strangely harmonized.
The Singer of All Things matches the notes
of footsteps and voices and buses and regrets,
a siren far off and a doubt so close,
a door closing and opening,
a laborer’s shout, a truck, a trouble,
all so delicately sung, a psalm,
a gift, a plea, a prayer,
an aubade ignored, a soundtrack for the world.
We hear but don't listen.
The singing continues.
Only later we realize
we wished we could have heard.
Yet in the stillness,
there, there it is, your name...
*The verb to busk, from the word busker, comes from the Spanish root word buscar, with the meaning "to seek". It was used for many street acts and was the title of a famous Spanish book about one of them, El Buscón.
Image by Adam Hill from Pixabay
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