From Sea to Shining Sea

We lift above the bay and its bridges,

Heading toward the mountains,

An irrigated valley visible

Between their north to south ridges.

Shrouded in clouds,

I doze and waken

To a gray and barren

Moonscape.

No one could live here!

Long ago volcanism made it so.

A few roads are scratched,

Into the chalkboard.

Frozen lakes lie between

Craggy peaks

With snow on the deep lines

Of their northern faces.

The rigid fierceness gives way

To hundreds of miles

Of cozy quilt, designed cooperatively

By man and nature.

At first man’s pattern

Consists of circles, semi-circles

And Pac-men gobbling tiny dots,

Buildings, I suppose.

Nature has contributed

Streams snaking along,

Drawn by a tremoring hand,

Meandering.

From 35,000 feet

Depth perception fades.

I see feathers and fronds

Scattered over the quilt.

As the quilt spreads eastward

The pattern evolves,

More and more rectangles appear

Among the circles.

Finally, the quilt is all angular.

Dots of buildings

Are placed in the corners

Of the quadrilaterals.

I ponder that real people

Live in the dots,

And work the fields

That cluster around them.

I want to see,

The mighty Mississippi,

That cuts through, providing access,

To our heartland.

I search and wonder,

Is that it?

It is wide and has

An obvious flood plain.

Maybe not wide enough,

Angled too eastward,

Then I see it heading south,

Broader than my previous guess.

The clouds cast a veil,

Over the quilt.

Buildings, towns and wind farms,

Fade into the gauzy whiteness.

The sky is darkening,

Orange, pink and yellow

Encircle us on the horizon,

As we fly into evening.

Staring through clumps of cotton,

Occasional lights appear,

Specks of brilliance

On a darkened earth.

Then we descend

Through scattered clouds

Lights outline the river bank,

Docks and boats and highways.

In a day, I have traversed west to east,

A land once traveled east to west

By souls more courageous

And adventurous than I.

They put down roots in a barren plain,

And created the quilt.

They sought out the mountain passages

And endured the wasteland.

They stumbled wearily onward,

And reached the western sea.

We enjoy the fruits of their labors.

With appreciation may we stand united.

May their sacrifice not be wasted,

On a people too self-centered,

Too greedy, too thoughtless

Unwilling to cherish and defend.