Most of this little poem was written in 2017. I re-discovered it a few weeks ago and changed the middle bit a great deal, although the overall statement/meaning remains more or less the same as it was at first.
I have only just learned that there is no sound beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. There is no sound ‘out there.’ Infinity is silent. It is not that I assumed there was sound in Space. It is that the issue remained a mystery for me, a question mark whenever I occasionally looked in that direction.
I now know that sound cannot exist without atoms and/or molecules. There are no atoms and/or molecules in deep space. It is conceivable, therefore, that nowhere in Creation except on Earth do atoms and/or molecules exist ; and nowhere except on Earth does sound.
It is this last statement, regarding sound, that I can get hold of best and find it utterly, utterly astonishing.
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The first line of this is a direct quote from a long satire in rhyme royal stanzas by the poet John Skelton, writing in the early part of the reign of Henry 8th. The rest is a description of where we seem to be at the moment.
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I’ve been running this project for years now. Demand for its material has come from schools, healthcare settings and libraries all over the world. Since Covid, however, that demand has effectively evaporated. For a while, of course, public space changed its nature. It became dangerous and, as a precaution, places like waiting rooms, class rooms and libraries had to stand empty for months. But now ? How to get poetry back into public space ? How to get words of care and truth and hope back into public space ?
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