Mediocre Minnesota
Not one thing’s new beneath the sun.
All songs that need be sung are done.
We’ve sung the praise of mountains high
and soared with eagles as they fly.
Majestic oceans swell with praise
we’ve lined and lined of sunny days,
of daffodils, of roses red.
A touch more than enough’s been said.
Of all that warms the normal heart,
we’ve rhapsodized from end to start.
Perhaps it’s time to drop the pen
and never pick it up again.But life in Minnesota brings
to mind the mediocre things
about which no one ever sings.
Praise with your songs the short, fat hills,
the tops of which nobody tills,
not that the side hills are too steep,
but that the topsoil’s just not deep
enough to nurture beans and corn.
But what a place to view the morn
or rest an hour from lowland toil,
caressed by that soft, sandy soil,
to revel in the plus of warm,
to watch the sparrows as they swarm,
storing summer’s micro rays
to last through winter’s maxi days.From off the top of that squat hill
the resting rustic lad can thrill
as mirror clouds come into view,
reflected off a spring-thaw slough,
or whitecaps on that wind-stirred pond
transport the landlocked beyond
the fields of gentle contour strips
to dream of never-captained ships.
The only seas he’s ever seen:
the azure flax and emerald bean,
the golden waves of mustard flower
’gainst which he’s toiled hour after hour.
No eagles, mountains, swelling seas;
he grows without the likes of these.
The soul of each young farm child sings,
full nurtured by these greater things
which life in Minnesota brings.