by John Grey.
All was magnified,
not looking for miracles,
my senses in their usual dormant state,
I was merely waiting for a train
in a subway station,
scanning the tunnel for light,
listening for those steel castanets
of wheels on rails.
I didn’t expect a musician
who embodied a grace
I’d once imagined for myself,
who bent strings to sorrow,
released them to hope,
whose simple voice stung with such sweetness,
who fixed me in her melody and with a touch,
a note, shook me with a loveliness almost too close to bear.
I didn’t turn to indulge in her face,
her surely ragged clothes,
waif face and artless fingering.
I learned nothing of the singer
but everything of the song.
A chance meeting became a chance repetition.