Dreich, for anyone unfamiliar with scots (the language not the folk) is one of those words that have multiple uses. The basic meaning is (approximately) horrible, wet, miserable, cold, deluging, foggy, sleety, weather. It is used in such expressions as "It is dreich the day, is it not?" although this anglicized version does not begin to convey the multiple nuances of the expression. Somewhere between a mood of resignation that the weather will not improve and that feeling of the cold rain dripping down your neck.

A young soldier we knew in his youth was recently killed in Iraq, and like many others brought home to be buried quietly, by his family, his colleagues and his friends, in a nation which seems only concerned to hold each life lost as a debit in some political score sheet by those whose freedom was bought by this young man and many like him before.

So I wrote this which I hope honours him and those who fight with him in Iraq and Afghanistan and it will be a dreich day in hell before I vote for any politician who forgets them.

Sonnet #1

On interring a young soldier

Oh winter’s winds are blithe compared to thee,
As snow bound clouds give mountains’ silver cap,
And as each stream that flows toward the sea,
We will remember, we will recall mayhap,
Those days of youth, whose free dominion,
Over all beneath the heaven’s eye,
Gave courage to our games’ opinion,
Running free beneath that azure sky.
And now I stand beside thee, still,
Returned from war, from land afar,
Your rest awaits beside that self-same rill,
The cruelty forgot beneath the even star.
Thus are the rage and fury of each hour lent,
Returned with interest by this nation spent.