(Maggie Hambling made a sculpture for Benjamin Britten, placed on Aldeborough beach, Suffolk. The torn steel sea-shell carried words from his opera, Peter Grimes. ‘I hear those voices that are not drowned’)<\/p>\n
Remembering people like
\npebbles on the beach, ear
\ncupped to hear the distant
\nsounds in the wind
\nof protest and
\nof song.<\/p>\n
I raise my battered flag
\nof steel, rusting in
\nthe sun; split with
\nthe shocks of
\nwave and wind
\nI defy death.<\/p>\n
I cry aloud for all
\nthose vibrant lives,
\ntuned to their song;
\ntheir pain in my
\ntrembling hands, to
\nheal wounds.<\/p>\n
The shell echoes the sigh
\nof shingle in the
\nsurging tide of life;
\na cry of gulls laughing
\ntheir crazy laugh into
\nthe wind.<\/p>\n