Listen to the world’s best poetry read out loud.

The cabbage tree was, they said,
dead. There was nothing they
or anyone could do
now or any day –
how sorry they
were, and sad.

But the cabbage tree heard them –
they never noticed
it shaking its head:
it shook it so hard
stars were said to have spread
from where the cabbage tree stood:

a blossoming, new constellation
across that night sky south.
Someone said just
yesterday,
some fires
you can’t put out.