I wanted to die on a day like this one,
Full of snow and sleet and a wind
Full of oxygen and atoms blowing like this one,
Come down out of Canada to whine
Around the windows. Instead I died
Where there's no weather at all, three thousand miles
Away in unremitting sunshine. I did
It for you and would do it again, the land of smiles
Being your own native country. Mine is death,
So we both wound up where we want to be,
Though it took us a lifetime of sickness and health
To get here. Now we can relax and be
Ourselves, rocked in the cradle of liberty,
Our dues paid up in the land of the free.
March 16, 2007
