Heard

Life comes delicately,
And in an afternoon of winter,
Lungs, a throat, small lips
Never heard before
Utter sound.
In the cries of the babies of New York
Are the noises
That float and tumble from a universe of sound.
In an hour, in a day,
In a neighborhood of New York,
I hear an orchestra of Beethoven,
And your beginning lungs.

About the Poem "Heard," by Ellen Reiss

The beauty of New York is not only to be seen but heard. In this poem of Ellen Reiss, the Aesthetic Realism Chair of Education, the sound of one newborn child leads to a new sense of meaning in the universe from which all babies and all sound comes. There is a beautiful relation of delicacy and power in the music of this poem, which has us feel the power and delicacy of reality itself in a new way.

                       --Karen Van Outryve and Faith K. Stern