How sympathetically Carole Bromley catches the wonder of someone hearing for the first time. Her poem comes from The Everyday Poet: Poems to Live By, edited by Deborah Alma, The Emergency Poet (Michael O’Mara Books Ltd, £9.99).

The editor’s Emergency Poet label was conceived as a way of bringing poetry to people, including those with dementia.

ON HEARING FOR THE FIRST TIME

‘It sounds very very high’

~

and she sobs for the joy of it,

for the reds and blues of it,

the shock, the hullabaloo,

~

the kerfuffle, the Sturm und Drang,

the sudden ice cream in a shake,

the sherbet firework burst.

~

‘It’s just amazing’ she cries

her face in her hands.

‘I’m going to say the months of the year’

~

and she hears them, shaking,

‘January February March’

April overwhelms her.

~

It’s like never having seen a bird,

or the sea or the stars

never tasting an orange,

~

like living all your life in a cave

and coming out into the light,

the sun on your face.

~

Afterwards she walks by the Tyne,

daren’t go alone for fear

the birdsong, the traffic, the ship’s hooter

~

will be too much. They are not.

It’s like falling in love.