The Bounty Felt Across the Land

A Thanksgiving tribute.

I am the bounty felt across the land:

Nebraska winter wheat, Macintosh and Granny Smith,

Idaho white, hay balers upon sweeping green acreage, 

the hands of migrant workers, butlers and maids, cotton fields,

beds of leaf lettuce, Silicon Valley, snow-capped Sierra Madre,

Missouri, Mississippi, Minnesota ore, Great Lakes transit,

longshoreman, Grand Tetons, the Snake, Hoover Dam, Tall Maine pine,

industry, import and export, harbors and interstate 

winding like veins through city and farm,

teachers who mold minds, surveyors, florists, pharmacists,

mathematicians, theorists, painters and planners and soy,

alfalfa, oregano, vine-red tomatoes in back yards and cranberries

by the truckload, radial tires, nylon, computers, I-beams

and artesian wells, arenas and neighborhoods, malls, mini-marts,

the artisans, the poets, barbers and beauticians, the veteran

whose duty was war, the seamstress, railroads, the bravery of fireman,

the vision of invention, the geologist who reads the earth

in ancient sea sediment, the pilot entrusted with human life

pitted against distance and four simple forces, Florida oranges,

dependence on the local grocer, the mason, musicians, 

bankers and clerks, the soft yet stable shoulders of secretaries,

entertainers and athletes, the handyman's expertise, a dentist

or a motivational speech, mothers and fathers 

with the patience of shirt pins, librarians, calligraphers, millwrights

and folk who move the country with trailer and rig, the chemist

whose polymers allow for tumblers and Tupperware, naturalists

and the gardens that sing melodies on hillsides, bakers,

boat-makers, managers, representatives, the jeweler and janitor,

the carpenter with hammer and nail interlocking lumber,

executives and architects, skylines set majestically by man,

the veterinarian's tact with both basset and Manx, 

the surgeon, the compassionate nurse, visionaries, historians,

explorers, the maker of a key and the keeper of a menagerie,

economists, reporters, accountants, engineers who take naked theory

and dress it in a tux, coaches, counselors, caregivers with shrouds

of compassion, plumbers and professors, mechanics,

welders, writers, waitresses, warehouseman, mayors and chauffeurs...

I am the bounty that is tolerance when prejudice sets fires,

when differences create fear, and fear causes hate.

The bounty, as limitless as space-time, 

as beautiful as russet sunsets and the soaring

of a snow goose, sweetly scented like lilacs, 

as soft as a newborn kitten,

a bounty that is tenacious and resilient,

a bounty that is light in the midnight of ignorance and superstition...

the bounty felt across the land is an open door;

it is kindness, hope, reason, vision, understanding, and love.

Reviews

[Casey Truax]

It feels like you are channeling Whitman with the energy and scope of this work. Truly impressive.