To the Folksinger Just Arrived

Whisper salutations to your irises

and tie those strange ornaments

into your hair. Crawl from your

Volkswagen into the sweltering city

and pluck something evangelical

from your book of songs. Strum

your dulcimer and enunciate as if

to blow life back into fried chicken

or restore the red to petrified roses.

Give them mystery, ancestry.

Give them not too much skin.

Yours, never forget, is the music

of freight trains and holyghosts.

You need only the lungs to drown

out the daily discord, the ambulances,

the ring tones and the burglar alarms,

and the city will place its heart

on the steaming asphalt and ascend.