A Flow of Words: Tis the season of love

‘Tis the season of love. However the way world events are playing out right now love appears to have been pushed aside in favour of greed and self-interest. 

‘A Flow of Words’ on Scariff Bay Community Radio with Mountshannon Arts invite writers to take inspiration from Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘Scaffolding’, a love poem that reasserts that even in difficult times if the foundations are secure we can survive the storms. 

Scaffolding by Seamus Heaney

Masons, when they start upon a building,

Are careful to test out the scaffolding;

Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,

Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job’s done

Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be

Old bridges breaking between you and me

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall

Confident that we have built our wall.

“Scaffolding” from Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966–1996​ by Seamus Heaney. Copyright © 1998 by Seamus Heaney.

Send us your prose (fiction and non-fiction) and poetry to aflowofwords@scariffbayradio.com and mountshannonpoetry@gmail.com by February 28th and include a contact phone number.

Writers will be invited to read and record their own piece for radio broadcast. Guidelines prose 600-1000 words, poetry 20-50 lines.