While pausing for tea this week (it was a pot of Orange Oolong Supreme before you ask :), I read ‘Essential’, the poem written by Scotland’s Makar, Jackie Kay, thanking essential front line workers of the coronavirus pandemic. It’s so beautiful I thought it was worth sharing… so pop the kettle on and sit with this:
Essential
Up, doon, the length of our land –
Aberfeldy, Ardnamurchan –
There’s uplift, sharing; pass the baton!
A frontline forming, hand to fierce hand.
Shopfront workers, doon the aisle;
New-era queues metres apart.
The chemist’s prescription warms the heart.
Delivery folk vanish, ghost a smile.
Volunteers at the local food bank…
Shy half-moon in a clear Scots’ sky.
We leave with tins, groceries, goodbyes…
Clap in the gloaming when we say our Thanks.
And the sky greets with stars
And the bold birds sing
As we clink in our links in the Kindness line;
Holding absent hands for Auld Lang Syne.
