Scotland's Dear Green Place, a poem

Glasgow’s grey and grimy, but green and graceful too There’s five trees left in Bellahouston and six in Calderpark zoo Although the neds would burn every single leaf

There’s still plenty of bushes to hide a car stereo thief

On the banks of the River Kelvin we have plants of every type Just enjoy all the greenery and ignore the black sewage pipe There’s an ecosystem formed round every single stone Iceland shopping trolleys catch the fag butts in the foam Both Pollock and the Botanics boast vistas clean and fine And a true Glaswegian never minds a discarded Buckie wine Tennents tins and Cally cans planted amidst the trees You’d never get drunk on daffodils dancing in the breeze

Yes Glasgow’s grey and grimy with gratuitous graffiti to boot But I’d rather our grunge and tenements, adorned in ornamental soot

To our slightly distant cousins, with a castle and a mile Cause it’s only in a month of Sundays that you ever see them smile

Neil Burke, Glasgow