Sound Poem Poem by Richard Whiting

On May 19th 1942, a recording was made in a Surrey garden, of a nightingale in song. Shortly into the recording, a squadron of 191 Lancaster and Wellington Bombers flew overhead. Undaunted, both the sound-recordist and bird carried on to produce a beautiful, yet chilling sound-poem which was later broadcast by the B.B.C.

Eleven of the aircraft flying overhead, did not return.


With heart pressed heavily
against the thorn*, you sing;
rich rolling water
from spring-fed streams,
rock-broken and shaped
to the sharpness of ice,
bringing clarity to dusk

where brightness would fail,
but for light flooding
every corner where darkness
could drown the day;
your aria of perfection
dripping from every leaf
like ash trees in the rain

as on a Surrey night
May ‘forty-two
you were captured;
not in the black ink and paper cages
of a thousand anthologies,
but reel to reel
they held their breath

sat motionless whilst you performed,
remained seated, moved and yet unmoved
even when migratory
Wellington and Lancasters
hummed and throbbed overhead
their crescendo out-sung
by your lovelorn gravity

and here in a Suffolk wood
seven decades on
my trembling hand holds a digital recorder
as your song reverberates
through trees and years
the silence
of long-lost birds

becomes my backing-track,
their sacrifice its peaceful clarity,
the passion of your performance
reminds me that time has not drawn
our worlds so very far apart,
the brevity of bomb-sites
the weathering of graves
each age issues its lament
with heart pressed heavily against the thorn.




*And whilst against a thorn thou bear'st thy part
To keep thy sharp woes waking, wretched I
To imitate thee well, against my heart
Will fix a sharp knife…

*from The Rape of Lucrece, William Shakespeare. Adapted from a strong theme in poetic imagery that a nightingale always sings with its heart against a thorn.