Keeper of Rún

Introduction to Keeper of Rún

Walk an old country road in Ireland, and you will meet them: gates patched and pieced together with twisted wire, rough timber and rusted iron – mended not for show, but because they matter. They have stood through storm and sunshine, leaned on by cattle, climbed by children, held open for lovers hurrying through the dusk. They are never grand, never celebrated… Yet they see everything, and tells nothing.

This poem speaks in the quiet voice of one such gate. It is not a judge, not a teacher, not a storyteller who shouts it’s truths. It is simply a keeper: of the soft splash of sruthán at it’s hinge, the shade of the sycamore, a gentle trust of an old horse leaning over its rail. Most of all, it holds the rún – the secrets, the quiet loves, the half-spoken words – that people leave there, safe under its weathered beam.

In a world that is always rushing to say everything, this gate reminds us how much beauty lives in silence. How trust is kept not by repeating what we know, but by guarding what is given to us. How the land does not forget – and how it keeps our memories, even when we have lone gone.

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We do not inherit the land from those who came before us.

We borrow it from those who will one day walk it after us.

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Glossary

Sruthán (SROO-hawn) — small stream, brook

Crúb (KROOB) — hoof

Rún (ROON) — secret, hidden truth, cherished confidence

Ciúnas (KYOO-nas) — deep, gentle stillness; a quiet filled with life

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Keeper of Rún




I am stitched with wire, scarred by nail,
iron-bound to oak that would not fail;
twisted fast where winter storms pulled free,
mended strong for all the world to see.



My hinge creaks low beside the sruthán,
where water winds through fern and sun;
beyond my rails the sycamore stands,
and one old horse leans soft and slow,
his light crúb tapping clover below,
watching who comes, and who may go.



I've felt the rush of leap and bound,
footsteps light on grassy ground - 
two hearts crossing shade and stream,
whose quiet vow I still keep clean.
No grand words here, no carved-out name;
only what the wind and I became.



I do not choose, I do not blame;
I know each footstep, every rún - 
the leap that hid two hearts away,
the apple left at break of day,
palm pressed soft to velvet nose,
where no one watched, and no one knows.



Through rains that fell and winds that blow,
I keep what trust has placed with me;
and those who walk on starlit nights
leave hidden hopes beyond my sight.
I speak no word, I ask no praise - 
my only song is soft ciúnas.



I've held the hush of half-spoken words,
the sigh no other ear has heard;
what passed between the shade and stream
rests beneath my weathered beam.
No tales I tell, no truths I give - 
I only let memories live.








Copyright © 2026 Pat Fitzgerald 
All Rights Reserved 

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Thank you for reading this Poem, for more please come back for more, Remember that” Every landscape is already a poem. The poet simply learns to listen.” _{Pat Fitzgerald 2026}

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Thank you for joining me on this journey of writing and discovery. Poetry, for me, is a continuous learning process. A way of finding my own voice and writing style and exploring the beauty of words.

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