American Expanse
While driving home from NYC,
I was hard-nosing the highway
past ancient steel mills
known as Gary, IN
It might have been
the pungent odors
of oil refineries or steel mills
or, the sight of decaying
government buildings near
downtown Gary, but I found
myself singing the words
to "America the Beautiful
"O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!"
But wait, there are no
“fruited" plains" out here.
Instead, there are wheated and corned
plains all across
thousand of miles of beautiful
American expanse.
Steve Heins
YES.. Sir,