Songs from the Orchard
Alongside Sonic Poetry, I continue to write songs rooted in folk, storytelling and the natural world.
While the Sonic Poems begin with poetry and allow the words to remain at the centre, these pieces begin differently. They are songs in the traditional sense — shaped through verse, chorus, melody and arrangement — while drawing from many of the same landscapes: memory, human behaviour, nature, humour and the slightly strange.
Whispers of the Queen
Whispers of the Queen begins with the hidden world of the honey bee — its extraordinary biology, its ancient social order and the mysterious figure of the queen — before widening into something more fragile. The song moves from wonder to ecological unease, and finally to a personal moment in which the appearance of a solitary bee becomes associated with loss, remembrance and a soul taking flight.
It is a song about bees, certainly. But also about what their presence — and their absence — might be telling us.
Whispers of the Queen
Verse 1
Be drawn within the magic hive
Where whispered secrets stir and thrive
A hidden realm of ancient lore
Where silent wings forever soar
The queen a duchess veiled in light
Reigns sovereign in the mystic night
Her pollen palace gold and deep
Holds timeless dreams the shadows keep
Chorus
Oh for the buzzing bee
Messenger of flower and tree
Oh for the honey bee
Spilling gold like a prophecy
Verse 2
Five eyes behold the hidden thread
Where light is spun and flowers tread
Four wings whisper sacred hymns
At speeds where silence softly dims
No red she sees but finds her way
Through hidden codes of bloom and day
The queen takes flight love seals his doom
One sting one breath then death in bloom
Chorus
Verse 3
They weave the gold in every bloom
A thousand voices in quiet gloom
The queen commands the workers yield
Their sweetness drawn from thorn and field
But nature trembles the silence worns
Dark winds descend the air is torn
They've crossed through France in phantom breeze
Soon shall haunt these hallowed trees
Chorus
Verse 4
My uncle and my cousin cheer
The Brentford Bees from far and near
When he passed on the stillness grew
Into the hush a lone bee flew
No wind had stirred no flowers near
Yet wings brushed past serene and clear
A quiet sign not meant to stay
A soul in flight then flown away
Chorus
© Alistair Sherwood 2026. All rights reserved.