I wrote this 'midst the grand excitement of the seeing ...in the sky......MARS...... The Red Planet..
It caused wonder on a grand scale...I saw it as I walked home that night....but I reckon that I had witnessed a more awesome wonder....when I knelt that day....and just looked......

Mars........
as in Bars.......A Scottish delicacy..

was battered and bludgeoned and thrown to its doom
in hot boiling oil in a fish ‘n chip room,
emerged as a wonderous snack in repose
in a wee Scottish toon that is kent as Montrose.......
.............................
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The Wee Slater (Wood Lice)
.....

Why is it that we look
tae the night sky
an’ we wonder what
the redness o’ a star
stauns for...?

And we calculate
as aye we can,
why and when and where
we can see it...
and we ken we are
privileged,
for no’ in the lyfetyme
o’ oor bairns
nor theirs as yet unborn
shall a sicht
be seen again...

It is a wonder....

and yet...
I bent doon
on my knees today
as if in silent prayer
and observed
the travels o’
a wee slater.

it trundled across
the flatness o’
the loading dock..
it was not
aware o’ onie dangers.

I offered a helpful finger
...and it disapeared
intae a ball...
I gethered that ball
intae my palm
and rolled it roond within
niver thinking
that perhaps
I was causing
some dreadful stress
tae a fellow
earthling..

I hied it to cover
‘mangst the bushes..
laid my palm oot.
and waited..

Unrolling frae the safety o’ it’s
unexplaneable protection system,
it buggered aff quite casually
intae relative safety...

I’m no’ concerned aboot the sicht o’ a red ball in the sky...

I’m mair concerned aboot the fate o’ that wee ‘slater’....

Graham... 2003