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.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article