November 9, 2022

I sit and watch the vista,

Miss the purple majesties

As the colors bleed out

Red and blue, blue and red,

And the middle becomes like

The line Mason & Dixon drew,

Artificially distinct across

The borders we diligently guard.

See how we are:

Florida man no longer brandishes

His bruises in his battleground state,

Now constricted just to one shade

In the ever present heat.

California dreaming now comes only 

In azure, cobalt, 

Ultramarine, a royal hue,

Fitting for its elite few.

South Dakota's finally rock solid

In its positive projectory

Over all the badlands

And her good people too.

Indiana, you are the quarry, 

But your crossroads of America

Are no longer limestone

'Stead forged in red clay.

Colorado may rock red,

But its amphitheater seats

Are planted blue, the collective whiff

For the way the wind blew.

Meanwhile here I sit in Michigan

Where the blue survived the red,

Even if from where I sit

The despairing lack of purple

Suggests fiery sunsets.