The Daffies on Great Western Road

by Pat Sutherland

All the way from Kelvinside to Yoker

they stood in ranks, heads up, ramrod straight. 

Off duty, they'd nod to the early bee 

and gossip about the trespassingTazetta

exiled from some matchless garden, 

sneering at her common woodland cousins. 

I'd tell her where to stick her trumpet, 

said the tallest one.

But the North Wind fancied a change,

after months of levelling island hamlets 

and blowing a hooligan over Wick;

so whistling something Wagnerian,

he swooped south,

picking up ponderous clouds

eager for a free ride.

And as he took one long deep breath

above Bearsden 

they yelled, Bombs away!

And loosed a million hailstones.

The Botanics emptied;

umbrellas and hats took flight;

the alt-left outside Oran Mhor

turned their Guardians into hats

and ran for the bar;

an ecstacy of toddlers splashed

and stamped in deepening puddles.

Legless and without a tail to turn,

the hapless daffs were rooted to the spot,

while gleeful gale and spiteful hail

skelped them down,

rubbed their frilly faces in the dirt,

and left them all - wiped out -

in a field of glaur.

Content with his carnage, but

eager for more, the vandal wind,

hearing word of loose slates

in Coatbridge,

blew off north-east.

He left a quieter sky.

A few querulous rays squeezed

through kettling clouds,

touching the battlefield

with a smidgen of warmth,

just enough to stir bedraggled heads

and turn them skywards.

All the way from Kelvinside to Yoker,

now back in their blazing ranks,

the daffies stand proud, heads up,

unbeaten.  Whaur's your phoenix noo?

says the tallest one.

Indomitable?  Naw: gallus.