Rab Wilson's charming cameo is included in The Smeddum Test:
21st-Century Poems in Scots, drawn from 10 years of the McCash Scots Poetry Competition, run jointly by The Herald and Glasgow University. (The anthology is published by Kennedy and Boyd; £7, or £10 includingUK postage, from the Oswald Street Bookshop,27 Oswald Street, Glasgow, G1 4PE).
DUMFOUNERT WI WUNNER
They taen the Kelloholm weans doun the street,
Twa, three wee anes frae the Nursery Schuil,
A jaunt tae the shops, social learnin skills,
Wi mebbes ice-cream thrown in fir a treat.
Ower the brig, across the swollen Nith,
'Keep in you pair, mind haud each ither's hauns!'
Wide-eyed the weans tak in the warld's oan-gauns;
Ane spys some men wha're thrang up oan a ruif,
An innocently daels her Joker caird,
Lik a fledglin bird bent oan kenning why,
She luiks up an she speirs 'Miss, whit's gaun oan?'
Distrackitly, her teacher maks repone:
'Ah dout they must be pittin up the "SKY".'
Dumfounert wi wunner, the wean juist stared.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article