Cynghanedd1 Kids

March 1, 1991

(at a music recital characterized by the singing of two Kristens of Welsh extract)

Sisters, are you listening?

In your singing there's a glistening:

It's that Celtic light and winging

of the Welsh American.

Two wild flowers with one rooting:

down your green, one sound now fluting

into hiraeth2 here between you -

Kristen Hughes and Kristen Vaughan.

O Kristens, in your listenings,

in your words with Cymru's3 christenings

blessed, the tones of Meirionydd4

flow melodiously one.

In the breath you share, the voices

of your ancestors rejoice as their

cynghanedd spells you softly -

Kristen Hughes and Kristen Vaughan...

1 In Welsh metrics, the pattern of assonance and consonance whose word echoes involve an intricate variety of end-rhymes, cross rhymes, and half-rhymes. The suffix ``-edd,'' ``-ydd'' is phonetically rendered ``-eth,'' ``-yth.'' Often the initial ``C'' is pronounced ``K'' (for example ``Celtic'' is pronounced ``Keltic'').

2 Nostalgia

3 Wales's

4 Welsh melody