The new earth.

Listen.

Music lives everywhere.

On a deck above

the silver-haired neighbor sings,

soulful and melodious,

as she sweeps beneath cloudy skies.

From behind the other fence

a piano concerto dances

whimsical and proud

up and down and around the trees.

Birds tweet and chirp and caw and chipper,

while the dogs engage each other

in a gruff and abrupt rap.

Walk these streets and

hip-hop bolts from car windows and

mingles with Tracy Chapman

hiding behind blinds.

Around every corner,

within every backyard

and through every window

a song lives

and declares itself to the afternoon.

This is the new earth,

where we proliferate

like leaves, like petals,

almost repeating,

everywhere differentiation mingling in rhapsody.

An absurd conglomeration, an impossible harmony.

Once our bodies moved to a single beat.

Now rhythms collide,

we weave around them,

and through each other,

jumping, prancing, shaking,

knotting ourselves into eternity.

Listen.

A long shrill voice jingles on Stuart street.

The ice cream truck vibratoes out front.

A blue jay picks through leaves.

An absurd conglomeration,

The speckled face

an impossible harmony.

of unity.