My most popular poem on Instagram this week was “The Scribe in the Wood”

Continuing my series of adapted old Irish poems.

This one was developed from a quatrain in Kuno Meyer’s book, Ancient Irish Poetry. It uses a twist on what in traditional Irish poetry is called the *dunedh*, the repetition of the opening word, phrase, or lines at the end of the final stanza(s).

The Scribe in the Wood

Well do I write my words
in the glade of the green wood,
all the livelong day.
From arch of trees
above my page,
the songbirds are singing lay.

Cuckoo calls clear calls for me.
Blackbird flutes fine squees for me
Linnet rushes rhymes for me.
From beneath the willow by the river
the cry of the white swan
cries to me.
One of the pigeon doves
that used to fly as two, still sings.
A soft coo, three louder,
her mournful strain to me.

The wind in the leaves
twines the tunes
and braids them back to me.

From arch of trees
above my page,
the songbirds are singing lay.
Well do I write my words
in the glade of the green wood,
all the livelong day.

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