Ode to Oregon

In truth I've always loved you, Oregon
even when as a youth,
with wanderlust badly bit
I didn't fully realize it

I can't say that you're immune
to the the afflictions
which these days trouble our nation:
a survey of the newspaper
often finds no reason or rhyme
to the latest crime, absurdity, or confusion

But I learned to walk
on the lonely sands of your windblown beaches,
to talk from the fierce-throated coyotes
that fill your vast woodlands,
and contemplated virtue and sin,
Shakespeare, Abbey, and Plato
on walks up a red-sand mountain
by my home in Klamath County

And who could fail to see the beauty
of your East's rugged but thriving potato farms
(wordlessly boasting of
their worker's ingenuity and industry,)
of your lush rolling hills
spotted with meandering cattle,
or of Tulelake's free wild-life refuge
where endless flocks of fowl
dice the air like a huge knife
in wondrous ESP synchronicity?

Then there's my Southern Oregon University,
located in posh but wild and free Ashland
(home of America's best Shakespeare theatre)
past which on the first day of Baghdad's bombing
we, without having to quiver in fear,
sang, chanted, and protested:
the whole of downtown thronging

Yes, from booming Bend
(with the West's finest telescopes)
to the pristine Steens Mountains
to road-side villages which to be towns pretend,
and so many other remarkable sights
of which I could write without end,
this is again the place to come
just as it was in the days of the trail,
free land, log cabins, and untaxed rum

Of course there's Mount Hood,
formed by an ancient volcano
and wandered by resourceful migrant tribes,
it's now a place to let go
and swerve the snowy slopes...
or feast and drink with good company
in one of the gourmet eateries

My home county of Klamath
is, like any small Oregon city,
extraordinary and typical:
soulful, decent people work all year
building quality doors and windows,
taking tourists out fishing or hunting
for abundant black-tail deer;
Small farmers and ranchers
can be seen, valiant and industrious,
manning their green or dry fields
against changing times

Where on Earth is their such wild abundance
coupled with such relatively mild seasons?
I don't deny that in certain regions
the snowy winter-wind can howl like demons,
but this is the price residents pay
for serene solitude and amazing springs

In the north, it can rain all day
but the forests are always flourishing and green
in a way I've simply never seen;
and here you'll find earthy Eugene
where the sun of civilization's renaiisance
is always dawning
though the sky may be gray

Further on, there's the great metropolis
known as Portland:
it's very liberal for American cities
and from the mini-marts to the universities
there are many, many ethnicities;
everywhere shiny cars zag and light trains hiss
and in the bars downtown
a rambler can find martini bliss

Perhaps I brag
(yes I know)
making every street-light
as the very moon glow,
and our government as progressive
as Trajan's pacific Rome:
but I owe it to this special place
which has always been my home