The Most Beautiful Voice I've Ever Heard

is a stranger's, known only from his words and recordings. Perhaps I was 14 or 15 when I first read and heard him, but still sometimes, his voice just enters my consciousness as strongly as if he were with me and speaking.

Like today. In Abbo's Alley. When I was lying along mossy stone, trying to take pictures of buds and leaves, what I heard was this:

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
by Dylan Thomas

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower

Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees

Is my destroyer.

And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose

My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks

Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams

Turns mine to wax.

And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins

How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool

Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind

Hauls my shroud sail.

And I am dumb to tell the hanging man

How of my clay is made the hangman’s lime.

Dylan Thomas - The Force That Through The Green... by poetictouch