The crowd hems the young musician in,
faces glazed with wonder: from where could this
strange music have come? Surely not this hemisphere.
A drone as deep as yet unexcavated ruins, far older
even than the Forum: Armani, Ray-Ban, Dolce
& Gabbana, all sink at once into equivalence.
He doesn't do the kangaroo, the mosquito or
the speeding Holden. Just the one dark warm lush hum,
the clean energy of circular breathing, lungs
and instrument the sum, familiar as the accordion
yet strange, as though not for money, nor just for fun,
but for reasons unknowable—some vast, unhurried Om.
I want to bolt up the stairs of the fountain
and claim that sound as the sound of my home—
but stop when I recall how rarely I slow to hear
the truer player busking in King George Square.
Colloquial language: “bolt” implies a rapid movement. The persona hears a familiar noise and wants to run to its source.
Circular Breathing