january

The January man he walks abroad with coats of wool and boots of leather



Recalling sunrise on the solstice - that's her, bursting out of the sea.


The January woman on the other hand slips into her purple velvet dress from Phase Eight that once many january's past cost a small fortune. And what for, say the woman of February, March and May? The Burns Supper she hoots adding a fling and a whee at the end of the line, in practise for the twirl in an eightsome reel. Burns and I, I anyway like to imagine, have much in common - we are both born under the idealistic sign of Aquarius and both born into the year '59. Robert Burns is almost exactly 200 years older than I. We both are fired up by the word freedom and like what poetry does to the heart.


So as I prepare to strike my dagger into the heart of the haggis and raise a dram to the people's poet who has meant more to Scottish people than Keats, Shelley and Wordsworth himself let it be his words I give you here and may Obama and the ressurrection of credit crunch be fuelled by that same spirit;


is there for honest poverty that hangs his head and a' that


the coward slave we pass him by, we dare be poor for a' that


for a' that and a' that, our toils obscure and a' that


the honest man, though ere sae poor, is King o' men for a' that





yea see yon birkie ca'd a lord, whae struts an stares an a' that


though hundreds worship at his word he's but a coof fir a' that


for a' that an a' that, their dignities an a' that


the man o' independant mind, he looks and laughs at a' that





so let us pray that come it may as come it will for a' that


that sense and worth o'er a' the earth will bear the gree and a' that


for a' that an a' that, it's comin' yet for a' that


that man tae man the warld oer shall brothers be for a' that.