A few times a week, as I leave my office at night, a saxophone player stands on the corner and plays for the small coins that drop into his hat.  I tip him from time to time, but he is mainly unappreciated. I imagine the notes from his sax get swallowed up by the forces of the street:

Leaving the Office

 

The saxophone notes blew across the intersection

where they were strangled by the metro bus’s exhaust

trampled by the cars and pedestrian feet

Sweet tones meant to soothe and give pleasure

were annihilated as night was knocking the sun out of the sky

The notes painted colors and throbbed time and rhythm

Who thought notes susceptible to destruction?

Yet the proof was littered on the street

Irretrievable loss, sounds lost forever.

Sure, more notes can be blown

But not those notes, not at that time, not at that place.

 

                                                                                    Augie Medina

                                                                                    2012