Reno

Biggest Little City in the World,
     Blackjack dealers, Wild Horse wranglers,
     A thoroughfare to Burning Man and Nation's Automobile Museum;
Windy, Wild, Waking,
Land of Hot August Nights;

They tell me you are hookers, gangs and casinos,
     and I have seen the headlines, so I know.
And they tell me you are desertland, and
     I relish the lack of moisture in the dry desert air.
And they tell me you're a has-been, and I say:
     I have seen it in the movies
     painted as the Mos Eisely of Tatooine.
And having answered so I look at those
     who kick dirt at my city, and I give
     them back the dirt and say to them:
Come and show me another city resting resplendent
     within a ring of mountain ranges,
     resilient and relentless.
Abiding the angst of dire droughts and furious
     floods, her people rally for their
     neighbors and restore their principality;
Tender as a mother soothing her child to sleep,
     protective as a soldier guarding his sovereign state
     against the world,
Revealed,
Emerging,
Growing,
Returning,
Ascending, abating, advancing,
Through the desert dust, bright lights
     on alabaster cityscape, dazzling with
     flashing brilliance
Through the perilous panes of possibility
     dazzling as young dames dazzle,
Dazzling even as diamonds dancing on the
     kept blue waters of Tahoe,
Sparkling and dazzling that through those waters flows the lifeforce of ages -
     decades of dreams and daring emigrants,
          Dazzling!
Dazzling the windy, wild, waking dazzle of the Dauntless, unfaltering, unshrinking, proud to be the
     Biggest Little City, Blackjack dealers, Wild Horse wranglers, thoroughfare to Burning Man and           Automobile Museum to the Nation.

Inspired by Carl Sandburg's poem Chicago