Real Live Music in the D. C. Subway Station
Street performers are part of the landscape.
Joshua Bell, playing there without disguise,
earned $40 in small change
for 40 minutes, and no one recognized him.
I should have been there in that
cacophonous tube of rush
echo
people
trains mere peripheral streaks.
Music enlivens these vaulty, clattery spaces,
yet the musician's hat
open case
or palm
tends us toward evasive eye contact.
Certainly I would have recognized him.
Don't I rush pell-mell over the crowd
to get tickets each time he comes to town?
... though I often fail.
But who could hurry past
this mystic music?
A woman I know
tells me of an invading army
unseen or heard by its hapless victims,
for they were unprepared to see.
She says if I visualize myself
sitting in a black Porsche,
Jesus will instantly put me there.
Bolt of lightning strike me
at my next stop if I'm too rushed
to look and listen.Yes! Bolt of lightning!
But then again, perhaps I am just imagining
that I am here at all.