Proof of Heaven
I’m going to try that again. Proof of Heaven.
My first treasured sight of Fairbanks: the sky’s a sullen gray,
but the green majestic stillness paints its beauty on this day.
Gentle spruce, the midget cousin of the ponderosa pine,
may not reach as high to heaven, but the heaven here is mine.
No one issues here a mortgage, for possession here’s alone,
here where God still holds the title to a land too pure to own.
Land too large and land too rugged, land too free to wrap in chains:
when the cheechakos have done their worst, the majesty remains.
Here to challenge, here to strengthen, here to justify one’s birth,
there’s no better proof of heaven than Alaska on this earth.