Anne Porter

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A List of Praises


Give praise with psalms that tell the trees to sing,
Give praise with Gospel choirs in storefront churches,
Mad with the joy of the Sabbath,
Give praise with the babble of infants, who wake with the sun,
Give praise with children chanting their skip-rope rhymes,
A poetry not in books, a vagrant mischievous poetry
living wild on the Streets through generations of children.

Give praise with the sound of the milk-train far away
With its mutter of wheels and long-drawn-out sweet whistle
As it speeds through the fields of sleep at three in the morning,
Give praise with the immense and peaceful sigh
Of the wind in the pinewoods,
At night give praise with starry silences.

Give praise with the skirling of seagulls
And the rattle and flap of sails
And gongs of buoys rocked by the sea-swell
Out in the shipping-lanes beyond the harbor.
Give praise with the humpback whales,
Huge in the ocean they sing to one another.

Give praise with the rasp and sizzle of crickets, katydids and cicadas,
Give praise with hum of bees,
Give praise with the little peepers who live near water.
When they fill the marsh with a shimmer of bell-like cries
We know that the winter is over.

Give praise with mockingbirds, day's nightingales.
Hour by hour they sing in the crepe myrtle
And glossy tulip trees
On quiet side streets in southern towns.

Give praise with the rippling speech
Of the eider-duck and her ducklings
As they paddle their way downstream
In the red-gold morning
On Restiguche, their cold river,
Salmon river,
Wilderness river.

Give praise with the whitethroat sparrow.
Far, far from the cities,
Far even from the towns,
With piercing innocence
He sings in the spruce-tree tops,
Always four notes
And four notes only.

Give praise with water,
With storms of rain and thunder
And the small rains that sparkle as they dry,
And the faint floating ocean roar
That fills the seaside villages,
And the clear brooks that travel down the mountains

And with this poem, a leaf on the vast flood,
And with the angels in that other country.




I found this poem this morning and it reminded me of the all the sounds and silences that swirl around our ears - what do you hear and are concious of hearing? My mom received her hearing aides several days ago and it has been a stuggle for her - her excitement at hearing sounds that she has not heard for years(birdscall, windchimes) was tempered by hearing sounds such as the refrigerator motor running,trucks, OHare air traffic,the furnace kicking in and the fact that sounds she had not heard in years, was perceived now, as being far too loud and overwhelming. Her audiologist explained that was a common perception and that she will get used to the noise level again. my mom repiled, I don't know, that silence may have been a blessing.

It is interesting how my brain filters, sentitizes and adjusts the amount and impact of all that data that flies in through my fingertips, nose, eyes, ears and mouth. and how much of the info I am oblivious to but my brain is so actively processing.