Language and Music

It’s no surprise that I recognise it
whenever I hear it spoken
like I did that Boxing Day
at M&S in Bath, though I hadn’t
heard it for years, and couldn’t
pick out a word – diolch, diawn,
and not at that time of day nostar.

My dad thought it was Polish
but I knew it to be Welsh,
for I used to listen to it spoken
every day in the shops, on the bus,
in Sospan Fach. But it’s a mystery to me
how just recently, whenever Monteverdi
comes on the radio unannounced

or I tune in half way through,
somehow I guess it is him
and guess right as I learn
when the music ends
or from the text on the screen
or by saying to my phone
What’s this song?

The only tune I know is Pur Ti Miro,
perhaps not in fact written by him.
He’s on none of my CDs
or old tapes. With other composers
I often guess wrong.
What does this reveal about me
except how long I’ve listened to Radio 3?

Peter Donnelly

Bio and Links 

Peter J Donnelly

lives in York where he works as a hospital secretary. He has a MA in Creative Writing and a degree in English Literature from the University of Wales Lampeter. Thanks are due to the Dreich magazine, Writer’s Egg, Southlight and South Bank, where some of these poems have previously appeared. His poetry has also been published in other magazines and anthologies including One Hand Clapping, Black Nore Review, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Obsessed with Pipework, High Window and The Beach Hut. The 22 won second prize in the Ripon Poetry Festival competition in 2021 and The Second of August was a joint runner up in the Buzzwords open poetry competition in 2020.