1.
The land of
Home grown businesses,
Small town pride,
And Runza for dinner.
The home of
Glorious landscapes of
Flowing fields,
And people’s love for their state.
We are unique,
But most importantly,
2.
Nebraska is small town pride,
dedicated fans of high school sports,
decades-old school rivals,
and exhausting nights of practice.
It is lightning bug filled ditches,
endless highways,
the long drives spent counting windmills,
and wide eyes when you see the capitol building.
It is tractor feuds,
the decision between hamburgers and hotdogs,
cows behind my house,
and the guys’ questionable haircuts.
It is Downtown brick roads,
driving around for fun,
the lively childhood nights,
listening to stories from ones we love.
3.
Home is where you find your heart
and where you long to stay
Where you long to stay is where
You find your family
Family is when you can smell your father cooking a steak on a Friday afternoon
Home is where you are truly loved
My home is family
Nebraska is my home
4.
Looking at my town is like looking at an ant
Landscapes are pieces of art made by Picasso
The biggest city stretches farther and farther away
My town might be the size of a teeny ant
But we all know and love everyone in the colony
5.
Town spirits soar
And bustling main streets
filled with the town’s shops
Rodeoing in all weather;
rain, snow, heat, or cold
Binge-watching Yellowstone and Heartland
Looking out a car window and seeing
hay bales littering the ditches
6.
Tallgrass hills where cattle graze
and inhabitants yearn for Husker game days.
Where late night drives are as exciting as it gets,
and lines are cast into faded sunsets.
Where misunderstood snapping turtles reside,
the place to find painted turtles by the lakeside.
Where time is spent watching dog races
and baseball players rounding dusty bases.
It is the home of the garter snake
trying to avoid the homeowner’s rake.
7.
Friendly dogs sporting camo collars, masters at riding in the pickup bed. Stray barn cats and a mouse control service; paid in milk left on the doorstep, collected by noon. Bottle calves with wet noses, nudging and nudging and bawling. Hunting stands hidden high in the trees, run-down wood still put to good use. Hugging Dad, nose wrinkled, the sharp tang of chemicals invading. Uncles and combine rides, watching the green steed suck crops up for good. The roar of loud machines, a cacophony to buzzing ears. Shouting to be heard, trying not to laugh.
Old cake trucks, safety hazards on wheels. Red rangers and green gators fixing fences and tagging calves. A 4-wheeler’s rumbling growls, thumb cramping and roads to gun. A system of cattle trails, deep and winding. Mossy water tanks and wet, shaggy dogs with lolling tongues. Ticks and paranoia, mosquitos and irritation. Cowhide worn trees, hooves stirring dust and tires kicking gravel. Thick and heavy mud, getting stuck stuck stuck stuck. Tires spinning into 4-wheel drive. Watching the weather, chewing over it during morning coffee meetings at the truck stop, trading suits for jeans and overalls.
8.
You can experience all four seasons in one day
The state full of small towns,
Where everyone knows everyone,
The place where there are more cattle than people
The land of “ya betcha”,
Where you smile at everyone, just because it's nice
The state known for Arbor Day and sandhill cranes
Where people live in dirt-covered jeans,
And kids trap wart covered toads in old coffee cans
The place where small townhouses sell in the blink of an eye
It's the birthplace of the Ruben and Kool-Aid
Where country music dominates the radio
It's not for everyone,
But it's home
9.
I come from the music––
where birds are buried
In sky; quiet grows like blush. It is not the song
A fence line sings before a storm. It is the motionless
Hum of wheat and grass; of prairie dog burying
His head in another––
An endless tangle of fur.
10.
Where we map out our state by how far
we are from the next town over.
Where my mom gives a two-finger wave
to every stranger we drive past.
Where you either love seeing Sandhill Cranes,
or try to hit them on your way by.
Where if you bump into someone,
the only thing from your mouth is an ‘Ope, sorry!’
Where we recognize the smell of a feedlot
as the smell of money.
Where conversations last for hours,
even after we said goodbye.
Where they ask us absurd questions,
and think that we don’t exist.
I am from a state
where I cannot imagine living anywhere else
than where I was born and raised,
because of the friendly smiles and open arms.
11.
I am from a small town surrounded by gravel roads
topped with a new shade of sky
for each coming summer night.
I am from June evenings of bonfires
and cornhole tournaments,
accompanied by s’mores and warm Capri-Sun packages.
Sunday’s church clothes are exchanged after lunch
for swimsuits and bucket hats
atop boats on Harlan Lake,
where miles of flat grass
turn into slight hills of sand.
12.
Clouded-up cities
Where winter evenings are navy blue endings
People look in as they pass and proudly remark that there’s nothing else
but yet ignore the cries of the children who resent cornfields and long to be loved for something different
Small-boned high schools with worn yellowing bricks
Where the charismatic are loved
The quiet are avoided and the different are told
They will never find anything other than the cage they resent
Helplessly flat horizons dotted with weathered houses
That shelter old ladies who smile at shy children in wooden church pews
And young men who try their best to grow and move faster than they can
To become something anything everything
Nebraska is familiar roads and highways with songs attached to them
Still-standing emptiness hanging from clouds on the weekends
Meanwhile hope tries to make for itself a new meaning
And lovers fight to keep it alive
This place is home only for those who claim it
It’s yours to decide
Don’t lose yourself among these weathered souls
And these yellowing minds
13.
I was predetermined a woman—
cornstalk legs,
hometown soil eyes,
and a full moon soul
that touched the cotton trees.
I was built to be polite,
to over apologize
for everything except for my opinions
which bend like reeds in the wind.
They aren’t like others’.
The others’ are stronger
than the obnoxious stench of manure.
I was raised to wear dresses each Sunday,
to ride in truck beds gifting music to the town,
to guzzle Kool-Aid and inhale Wacky Packs.
It is obvious who I was meant to be
and everyone can tell you who I am
because I am Nebraska.
14.
Nebraska is Florida’s lesser shamed cousin, a joke passed through celebrities' surgically altered smiles. This place is not always nice. Sometimes it’s gossip hallways. Sometimes it’s belligerent interstate. Sometimes it’s breakups at pancake houses, milkshake stomachaches, dehydration from tears shed over undeserving lovers. If you look closely, if you linger, if you stay awhile in this state of blemish and bruise, you might glimpse a Canada goose nest at dawn. A patio glass of iced tea before it begins to sweat. A neighbor returning lost mail. A garden plot brimming with radishes, carrots, kale. A girl writing alone. A girl writing poems for the place she calls home.
*
Contributors in the order in which they appear:
Alizabeth McDermott
McCartney Elliott
Ely Pittner
Danica Ervin
Emma Grube
Jerzie Vap
Jacey Kent
Maxine Fickenscher
Tyler Michael Jacobs
Mercedes Holmes
Delaney Ham
Kylie Burken
Hope Anderson
Gina Tranisi