For there is a sound reasoning upon all flowers. For flowers are peculiarly the poetry of Christ.

Writing poetry makes you intensely conscious of how words sound both aloud and inside the head of the reader. You learn the weight of words and how they sound to the ear.

From my music training I knew that some Spanish rhythms apart 5/4 is a time signature used only in the modern era. Holst's Mars from the Planets is 5/4. But if you speak lines of poetry in that pattern you just end up hitting the off-beats. It's only when you add a rest - a sixth beat - that it sounds as it surely should sound.

Perhaps no person can be a poet or even enjoy poetry without a certain unsoundness of mind.

For my part if I consider poetry as an object I maintain that it is born of the necessity of adding a vocal sound (speech) to the hammering of the first tribal music.

The music industry's actions at the time of 9/11 and since have been actions driven by patriotism in most instances and greed and stupidity to a lesser degree. Sounds like real life doesn't it?

Sound is the vocabulary of nature.

The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain the sound of wind in a primeval wood and the sound of outer ocean on a beach.

We talk of our mastery of nature which sounds very grand but the fact is we respectfully adapt ourselves first to her ways.

I still absolutely love 'The Sound of Music' and anything with Julie Andrews in it.