The smell of malts fills the air
That is reflected off the Michigan waves
Back to the shoreline
To our noses.
The first toes to sand are startled
By squawking seagulls overhead
Who are excited about the sweaty six-pack that’s pulled from my bag.
We’ve travelled far from the smokestacks
To this beach that is shadowed by the resting sun:
Through two rivers and
Miles of anticipation.

Our warming beers and
Our warming backs
Contrast the cool air
Attacking our faces
From the seeming abyss
That spans the horizon
Giving birth to a land
So distant, yet
So similar.

The next caps are pried off
As we both wonder
Whether across the abyss
Two lifelong friends
Are looking back at us.

Each step closed
The 26.2-mile gap
That separated me
From my home in Wausau.

This trek took its toll
As I’d seen nothing but trees
Towering over
All the beauty I saw:

Homes full of families
Living amongst the hills
Not fancy, not gaudy,
And not bourgeois.

No, the trek toured the hillside
Of homes warmed by wood stoves
That neighbored my mother’s
At my home in Wausau.

Just across a river—
Not too large
But still too far—
Lies another state.
The same as me
And yet,
So very much
An alien place
Full of yoopers and pasties,
And ‘Ganders (those nasty
Wolverines that bite and claw
When you tell them they talk funny
Kind of like us,
But we
Are sophisticated
Down here
South of the river
Where fires roar
But we endure,
Where we live free
From fields to shore,
Where we call home:
South of the river).

Who owns this land
But the people
To whom it was bestowed?
Who can take it from them
But themselves
Who want it forever
But dare not remember
That it’s most fragile?
At this pace
Grandsons and daughters
Won’t deal with the blood.
Rather they would
Pity those who do:
The ones who own the land.

Here you’ll find no Devastation
Only Wild Rice
Floating in the Waters
Once destined
To be inherited by a Great People
Led by Oshkosh in the West
And Ada in the East
Here we Reserve
This little Piece
Set out for Us
By Not Us
From all of Ours
To just this little Piece
Of Wild Rice
Floating in the Waters

The City is rich with history:
Brewing beer and baseball,
Wades and Seligs,
Harleys and Les Pauls,
Liberaces, Houdinis,
And mother to Ingalls,
And brewing beer!
(Did I mention that all?)

The City likes its breweries.
Only in the water this is hidden.
The City sure doesn’t regret
Sloppily kissing the Michigan.
The Brewers won the World Series!
(Even if you claim they didn’t)
We’re all winners in Milwaukee
For Bucks in 6 is winning.

…I mean Sparta.
(Or was it Tomah?)
I know I should be smarter,
So sit down let me tell ya:
These are silly games we play,
Naming places after
The Greeks and the Romans.
Nowhere near Troy,
But somehow we’re still Trojans…?

I love it here.
Though it isn’t Greece or Rome,
This place is something special:
This is Monroe!