Haggis
Take entrails of a sheep, add spice and stuff them into the animal’s dead stomach.
Boil for hours.
Stab it open with a knife taken from a live man’s sock.
It’s a special occasion.
The improbably delicacy will be lubricated
by whisky and poetry and friendship
at thousands of tables in dozens of countries
tonight, and for years to come.
Not, really because of a man’s poetry
or his politics, or even his romantic adventures.
Certainly not his money or power. No.
More than 200 years ago, his friends
gathered to keep raise a glass and him in their minds.
Then catch the moments as they fly,
And use them as ye ought, man:
Believe me, happiness is shy,
And comes not ay when sought, man.