Smeddum

As if I was ground to dust and my heart still in it,
even with my bones powdered to meal,
my blood dried to a paste and my flesh
in torn strips, dried to pemmican;

I would still drag a smile from this pulled-pork face,
let the half-hearted wind blow my hopeless pieces into piles,
and still feel earthbound energy rise from my grains.

© BH, 2020

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Another Poetry24 challenge connected to a piece on the BBC about words for emotions in other languages. These were, as you'd expect, from across the world: Hindi, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic…

I thought we needed some from nearer home and Scots has plenty. Hence this…

There is a Scots version (but I'm saving that for later).

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From the Scots word ‘smeddum’. “Spirit, energy, vigorous common sense and resourcefulness, mettle.” … a word mutated from the Old English ‘smedma’ meaning fine flour. It was also a short story by Lewis Grassic Gibbon in the early 20th century.

Written in response to FB post by Becky Tate on this BBC article: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170126-the-untranslatable-emotions-you-never-knew-you-had