The Morning After

Thanks to our National Poet, we have another day to add to the drinking calendar!  Appropriate, then, that I should post on the day after Burns Night the second of my 26 Treasures.  For this piece, I wanted to find something associated with The Bard.  Unfortunately, the item that took my interest wasn’t actually on display, so I had to look online for a picture. 

Perhaps I should design my own family crest, as Burns did, to illustrate my piece.  But no, there isn’t time; I shall pilfer the picture instead, in the spirit of my little poem (which also steals a joke told to me by a friend who passed away a few years ago, so at least he’ll not chase me for it.)

Stock-and-horn – from a Chanter, owned by Robert Burns

If I could remove the rampant cat

   from my family crest; replace it

with a stock-and-horn, perhaps

   I’d filch affinity with Burns.

Would I choose a bird, or bush

   – Twisted Hazel, Song-Thrush –

swap the mottled tartan; maybe

   something more exotic, or plain?

I’d pilfer, for a motto, ‘What

   defines a courteous Scot?

One who kens to play the

   pipes… but chooses not.’