Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by writer Karen Edmisten Here. Thank you Karen for Hosting. Karen shares with me a deep love of coffee.
I am happy to say I submitted a poem to the Gyroscope Review this week. It made me feel good to participate. Submissions are open until September 1st, if you happen to be a poet and a woman over fifty.
I have spent a lot of time this week watching YouTube videos on watercolor. I find it all fascinating and isn’t creativity good for one’s mental health? It’s good for mine.
But today I’d like to celebrate our fifty states. Why? Because they are all different and anyone who disparages diversity might reconsider if they knew more about the individual states.
Looking through my phone for photos to paint, I found photos from my drive out west with my husband two years ago. Bart and I rode through a state I’d never been to : Wisconsin was one. Like most states, its citizenry is made up of native peoples and those with immigrant backgrounds. We visited the beautiful capital, Madison.
Wisconsin State House
We also drove through Minnesota. The town of Blue Earth, Minnesota, is the home the Jolly Green Giant, celebrated by a very tall statue. Who knew? He looked oddly like my husband.
I learned facts about Wisconsin on a road sign.
Minnesota facts: There are fifteen thousand lakes in Wisconsin, 65 towns with the word “lake” in them and many more in the Chippewa or Dakota languages. There are 13 falls. The one called Minnehaha inspired the Song of Hiawatha, by Longfellow. There are ten rivers and five rapids, not to mention isles, bays, and beaches. I was very impressed! There are many more facts and I’d like to return. What an amazing state!
I love New York and my home in the Finger Lakes region as much as those from Wisconsin and Minnesota love their states’ beauty.
Last week at the New York State Fair, I visited prize livestock, chicken and rabbits. I met a farmer who told me that a calf gains two pounds a day and eats grains two days after birth. A year old calf I met, weighed two hundred pounds! I loved hearing about his life as a dairy farmer.
Calves at the New York State Fair
If we can see the beauty and understand the history and people in each state, that can only help build respect for our differences. Is that too preachy?
ABOUT OUR FIFTY STATES
Each one different
in origen and people,
every state belongs
© Janice Scully 2025
Thank you, Karen, for hosting!