Poetry is essential in face of difficult times

Scotland's Makar, Jackie Kay, has written a poem to thank essential workers during the coronavirus outbreak.

The national poet hails chemists, volunteers, carers, delivery workers, and those in the food supply chain and she wrote Essential as a “huge, big, thank you” to those working on the front line. She said: "We've become as a society, and as the world, even more aware and more appreciative of every single thing that people do and the effort they're making to keep us fed and to keep us safe."

ESSENTIAL

Up, doon, the length of our land Aberfeldy, Ardnamurchan There’s uplift, sharing; pass the baton!

A frontline forming, hand to fierce hand.

Shopfront workers, doon the aisle; New-era queues metres apart.

The chemist’s prescription warms the heart.

Delivery folk vanish, ghost a smile. Volunteers at the local food bank… Shy half-moon in a clear Scots’ sky.

We leave with tins, groceries, goodbyes…

Clap in the gloaming when we say our Thanks.

And the sky greets with stars

And the bold birds sing

As we clink in our links in the Kindness line;

Holding absent hands for Auld Lang Syne.