The Lullaby Beneath Concrete

In a city stitched from steel and wire,
Where glass teeth scrape the sky’s attire,There lives a song — a breath, a sigh —
A lullaby too soft to lie
On screens that glow with pixel light,
Too tender for the apps of night.

Once, it swelled in alleyways,
In puddles where the moonlight plays,
In laughter echoing off trains,
And windowpanes that wept with rains.
But now, it hides — a thread unwound —
Its notes are lost beneath the sound
Of buzzing phones and calendar calls,
Of hurried heels in marbled halls.

The city sings, yet none can hear
Its heartstrings strained by silent fear.
For silence is not peace, but pause —
The hush of souls without a cause,
A loneliness in shared cafes,
A thousand eyes with inward gaze.

Yet one small boy — a chord unplayed —
Still hums the hymn the silence made.
He walks with ears turned toward the ground,
For melodies sleep all around:
In rusted swing sets, windblown signs,
In subway doors and crooked lines.
The song, he knows, was once complete —
A harmony of passing feet.

He finds a note near building seams,
A whisper caught in sidewalk dreams.
Another drifts on roasted air
Where chestnuts crack in vendor’s care.
He pockets each like fallen stars
And strings them in his memory’s jars.

But with each note he dares to save,
The city's pulse grows less enslaved.
He plays them on a makeshift flute —
A straw, a bottle, moments mute —
And people pause — if just a breath —
To hear what lies beneath their death
Of daily scroll and numbing tap,
A phantom tune in silence’s lap.

The cacophony begins to strain
As streetlights hum a new refrain.
A cabbie rolls his window low,
A barista lets her playlist go.
And somewhere high on glass-topped spires,
A janitor, between his choirs,
Hears something in the AC’s whine —
A ghost of music, near divine.

But shadows hiss — the Tech Parade,
With siren-screens and neon blade.
They drown the song with dopamine,
With curated feeds and AI dreams.
They call the boy a broken wire,
A glitch, a spark, a misplaced fire.

Yet still he walks, and still he plays,
Through blinking nights and blinded days.
For every note he dares to find
Restores a heartbeat to the blind.
He teaches ears to bend, not break,
To seek the real in the fake.

A girl with earbuds lifts her eyes,
An old man halts his game of lies,
A busker tunes to chords once gone —
Together, they begin the song.

And lo — the lullaby returns,
In chimney winds and candle burns.
The city breathes a softer pace,
The boy — a conductor in silent grace.
Not saving sound, but waking sleep,
By giving back what silence keeps.

So listen not to only noise,
But find the hush where heart deploys.
For music lives in subtle things —
In rust, in dust, in feathered wings.
The city isn’t just what’s seen —
It’s everything that lies between.

- Khushi Kaul