Song for a Child

I originally wrote this for a child who was in hospital for an ear operation.  It was then set to music by my old friend Roderick Skeaping as part of a suite for a children's choir.  It had it's premier at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank in London.

I forgot about it for some years but retrieved it for a poetry reading in Bournemouth this Spring.

There is no sound.

There is no sound

Like the vibration of the ether.

The piercing sound of crystal spheres

Is silence;

The farewell tears

Of stars that glitter:

Planets skitter

In their orbits like fireflies

At evening:

There is no sound

There is no sound

Like old fools praying:

"Remove our fears"

Is what they're saying.

No sound of prayers

Can reach the stars.

There is no stairs

For angels  passing

And the old men's eyes are filled with with tears:

“There is no sound!”

There is no sound;

But the still small voice,

Too small to still the fears of fools

But carried on the ether,

Reaches to the child who hears

The Sound.

There is the sound.