The Recall of the Wild

(There is a plan to “re-wild” part of Scotland with wolves, bears, lynxes et al.  Delivery was recently taken of two moose.)

Who wants to have a gander
At a harmless Highland goose?
Why not the Pictish panda
Or the tartan salamander
To let loose with my new moose?

Let men stand upon the fairways,
Meet a lynx upon the links:
Let the werewolf and the bear graze
As the Caledonian airways
Bring in mammoth, gryphon, sphinx.

Let the pterodactyls’ cackles
Rouse the jackals of the Jocks,
Raise the native dragon’s hackles,
And let monsters shed their shackles
At the bottoms of their lochs.

See wee serpents, draped in coral,
Drag their kilts up from the brine,
Hear the braveheart bunyips quarrel –
Let them shiver in Balmoral
When the wild hyena whine.

Oh to be in bonnie Scotland
When the hippo sheds its hide,
When the basilisk, in hot sand,
Haunts the-place-that-time-forgot, and
Swallows Mars Bars, freshly fried.

Yes, I stand in tam o’shanter,
In cahoots with Nature’s roots:
Glen-monarch, whisky-ranter,
With wild boars at my decanter
And new moose-shit on my boots.

Bill Greenwell