People always say Oklahoma has no beaches or mountains,
So there's nothing to do here.
But they don't tell you about how here in Oklahoma,
We got some things they don't have other places:
We don't have beaches; but we have acres and oceans of caring.
We don't have too many mountains;
But we have plains and pinnacles, of human kindness.
We have salt of the earth people, with red clay fired veins;
Bedrock people, who won't move;
Who will never shift a centimeter, even though the earth
Move all the seismographs clear off their baseplates;
People who will show up with trucks and ropes,
Without being asked, after a tornado blows your barn over,
And people who show up with water for your cows,
When it's a hundred and five, and you're in the surgery,
Wondering if you'll still be around
To take care of those cows, in a week or a month.
People who let you be yourself, because being true to themselves
Is the only way they have ever known how to be.
People who don't stand on formality, or far removed courtesies.
I wouldn't trade all the beaches or mountains in California;
All the skiing and surfing, for even one square mile of Oklahoma;
It's the only true bargain I've ever really gotten out of life.
Patti Masterman
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/why-i-love-oklahoma/
