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

 Note: The written and recorded versions of this poem have significant differences toward the end. The transcription below is authentic to the first publication of ‘Song’.

And silence didn’t speak –

it perched on a low 

branch and a song flowed 

into my ear

   the ferns unrolled

flower followed flower

my inner ear widened 

to receive each line 

        each stroke

   each blade of grass 

   lifted and unhooked itself –

the earwig 

      refolded its wings

        in a little canopy 

of gladness

and I noticed myself 

        for the first time –

my water glass I kept 

      firm in my hand

and I spat out the stone

from the plum tree and bent to

place it on the soil –

        I tilted my face

towards the sound

as slowly the

pale song of hunger

        emptied itself

and behind me I felt

        fluent hands catching in

the brambles

      I did feel it – sure as

the rain which fell that

evening

and those raindrops

      did

   lengthen to silvered stitches