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  • Veronica Aaronson
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  • The Art of Listening
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The Art of Listening

Veronica Aaronson

Hunt out wild flowers,
reach out, not to pick them
but as an offer of intimacy.

Stay open-hearted,
don’t put your ear
to the ground to listen

for sap or soil, instead
tune into the words
written between the lines –

visible in the way bluebell,
pink campion, stitchwort
offer up their secrets,

have made themselves
vulnerable against
pale and dark greens.

This is an offering –
last chance to hear
this moment’s prayer. 


Veronica Aaronson

From Nothing about the birds is ordinary this morning (Indigo Dreams, 2019)

Reproduced by permission of the author.

Tags:

flowers listening nature wildflowers

About this poem

This poem was included in Best Scottish Poems 2019. Best Scottish Poems is an online publication, consisting of 20 poems chosen by a different editor each year, with comments by the editor and poets. It provides a personal overview of a year of Scottish poetry. The editor in 2019 was Roseanne Watt.

Editor’s note:

I love the gentle spell at work in this poem. In a loud and hurried world, ‘The Art of Listening’ brings an urgent, near-sacred moment of stillness. Here is an opportunity to attune to the harmonics of what is at play ‘between the lines’, and the vulnerability required to occupy such a space. This poem comes as a much-needed balm during these extraordinary times – where even in this moment of mandatory solitude, it can still be hard to hear above the roar of the world’s anxieties.

Author’s note:

This poem was prompted by a growing intimacy with my immediate surroundings, particularly the flowers, as I walked the same path every day on Iona. It’s a reminder to myself to look closely, and tries to capture something about the way life is a moment to moment process – something it’s easy for me to forget.

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Best Scottish Poems 2019: English

edited by Roseanne Watt
Find out more

Veronica Aaronson

Veronica Aaronson is the co-founder and one of the organisers of the Teignmouth Poetry Festival.
More about Veronica Aaronson

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