Singer on the Isle of Stones (a cappella version)

Poem by Maureen Tolman Flannery

He sang in a pub on Innishmore 

and his song has followed me home. 

The powerful timber of his sea-wind voice  

blew itself into this poem. 

The room fell silent when he started to sing.  

All pints remained on the table. 

The revelers stared at the peat-fire embers  

and breathed, if they were able. 

As he wove a spell into the notes 

in his song of the nightingale, 

the men grew sober by degrees 

and the women all turned pale. 

His words told the tale of an innocent love  

and the sweet ones, hand in hand, 

but the sound came out of a magic place  

that few there could understand. 

We called for more but that was all— 

one song to blow us off course 

then finish our Guinness and walk through the stars 

bewitched by the music’s force, 

enchanted by tones of the publican 

with a voice that cast a spell 

as the fairies ensnared in their web of time 

in the stories our grandmas tell.