A MacRitchie Family Toast

Pour a glass, and hold it high
and in the liquor catch the light
that trickles down to us below.
We all must drink; we drink to live
and what we drink is what we love.

Drink ale; drink beer; drink wine; drink worse.
Drink whisky from the Clan’s long home.
Drink water, which is liquor’s nurse;
drink what you will, but be assured
the spirit glowing in the glass
is not fermented, not distilled;
it's born of more than mountain stream;
it's lingered longer than the years
the whisky in the barrel waits
to toast us who are gathered here.

Tonight we drink of Family,
that's wandered far from what was home.
Flung all around the circled globe
but come together here as one.

For here we are: the living end
of something larger than our lives;
the freshest twigs upon a Tree
we trace into Time’s wilderness.

The roots are deeper than our names
but names are what we must go by,
so half a score and more are here
to shelter in MacRitchie’s plaid.

We trace our names, we trace our blood,
we trace our time allotted;
full thirty years are lived and gone
since we have thus consorted.

It seems the scene is much the same,
yet places have been shifted,
and we have learned to see the world
through eyes we’d only guessed at.

Some of us were children then,
and here too we have children.
And those that were may now do well
to emulate their parents.

For that is what a family is,
more than a name or bloodline:
a habit of the Ancestors
forever worth repeating.
An act of Love, as much as Blood
that joins our generations.

So here’s our Family, drink it deep
and when we’re drunk we’ll brag a bit.
We’ll say we’re good, we’ll say we’re best;
we’ll stroke the cat without a glove.
But when we drain our final dram
we’ll know it’s Love we honor.

To all of us who drink this glass;
to those whose hearts are with us;
to those who live but in our hearts;
to those who will succeed us.

MacRitchie of the many names
your plaid is wrapped around us.
Your children we, our children yours,
all in a glass refulgent.