Ode to the Busker

Featured in the upcoming issue of Solstice Literary Magazine.

Ode to the Busker

Masses hurry to downtown destinations, yet for you
they pause.  To watch calloused fingers flicker
on fiddle’s fingerboard.  You capture them amid the chaos,
and they listen.  Every note and every chord.

Hurried plans are placed on hold to hear
your violin’s sweet-soul, siren song.
Your case is sparsely filled with stranger’s gifts,
but that’s alright.  It was for the music all along.

Only you, with audience entranced in improv
melodies, can stand to tower over background
skyscrapers.  Ambient noise and city smog are lost
in the hypnotic power of your fiddle’s sound.

Your street corner symphony resonates to crowds
that know no single race, or creed, or age.
In this moment, you are the Beethoven.  You are the Beatles.
The Elvis of the sidewalk stage.