Hope, Fear, Pride and Rabbie Burns

When you wake up literally singing line one of a Burns poem
“Is there for honest poverty….”
and you can’t remember what you were dreaming
and you open the curtains on another dreich day
but look, the rain has paused
and the news is as horrible as yesterday, maybe more so,
but Out of Doors is on Radio Scotland
and all your pets seem to be arthritic or spewing megalithic fur-balls on the bed
but it’s your partner’s side of the bed
and the weeds have grown a foot overnight
but the wren’s firking about in the compost heap
and swallows are lining up on the wires, considering Africa
but they’re still here and chattering
and there’s bread to be made and flour sacrificed to the god of sourdough
and after all, Rabbie Burns was young and might be cut some slack for his faults,
and Ian McKellen is coming to Perth for a Pride rally
and might he not just cast a spell or two?
and a mediaeval fayre will be filling the town
but you’ve got a bus pass
and things might get worse but

this is Scotland and

“for a’ that, and a’ that, it’s coming yet, for a’ that,
that man to man, the world o’er shall brithers be, for a’ that”

HOW DID YOU WAKE UP THIS MORNING?