O’ber Dog

By THLaird Colyne Stewart, March AS 50 (2016)

The sun sinks so low, while cold the wind blows and running through snow goes a tan hound.

She picks up a scent, her mind it is bent on prey where it went and hid to ground.

The winter ground hides in snowy dune tides where the prey abides—there is no prize.

Returns to my feet without any meat; takes a chilly seat and she sad cries.

But, joy, she leaps up—a glad, happy pup, her mind turned from sup and her distress.

Just happy to be, to run, oh so free; her face full of glee and pure gladness.

While no master piece of literature, this poem is my first attempt at writing in the Welsh awdl form called cyhydedd hir (pronounced cuh-hih’deth here). Cyhydedd hir were lines comprised of three 5-syllable sections that shared an end rhyme, followed by a 4-syllable section with a new end rhyme. The next line uses c rhymes in place of a rhymes. These internal rhymes remain within the line while the end b rhyme connects not internally but with the next line’s end rhyme.

x x x x a x x x x a x x x x a x x x b

x x x x c x x x x c x x x x c x x x b

I found it easy to write the lines by splitting each line into a stanza, and then collapsing them again once I was done.