if nobody speaks of remarkable things

I can't really bring myself to listen to - let alone write about - music at the moment. Which is why I'm filling my blog with pretty little poems. I've saved these from a friend's "Poem of the Day", because something about them was a bit optimistic, or a bit meaningful in some way.

I love my homes. I love Dunedin, and I love Wellington. And I know there are those who feel the same bond with Christchurch, and who are hurting at the thought of the devastation of the city they love.

This morning this little excerpt struck a chord. 

     -- if nobody speaks of remarkable things [excerpt] --

If you listen, you can hear it.

The city, it sings.

If you stand quietly, at the foot of a garden, in the middle of a street, on the roof of a house.

It’s clearest at night, when the sound cuts more sharply across the surface of things, when the song reaches out to a place inside you.

It’s a wordless song, for the most, but it’s a song all the same, and nobody hearing it could doubt what it sings.

And the song sings the loudest when you pick out each note.

     -- Jon McGregor