Boyle McCauley News

Since 1979 • April-May 2024 • Circulation 5000

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This is the City We’ve Chosen

This is the city we have chosen
No one else seems to understand why
We huddle up here in our houses
Reading books about the world passing by

This is the place that has claimed us
This is the fortress of solitude for everyone
Inside our wooden coffins warming each other
Waiting for the return of the sun

Six months of each year we’re assaulted
By the wind and the snow and the ice
Then six months of the year has such beauty
We feel the summer times are worth the price

We sit on the edge of infinity
More neighbors of space than anywhere else
Right here the struggle is to keep going forever
Though in midwinter we all have our doubts

It’s a good place to ski but we are not all skiers
It’s a great place to snowshoe but we don’t often do that
Most are here to wait for what we call the spring break-up
And warm up huddled up near the fire like cats

There is money to be made in this northern fiasco
There is oil there is diamonds and gold
And if you don’t want to go to those places
Move away before you get old

I love this city with its river valley
The whip-like curve of the frozen divider
It harbours a taste of the nature we trampled
In order to make each family head a provider

Here it seems you are of different classes
If you are from North or South of the river
But this is the city we’ve chosen
Both sides love to punish their liver

This is the city I’ve chosen
This is the place where you drink at fourteen
Everyone in this place loves a drinker
Cut them off and you’ll see them get mean

This is the city we’ve chosen
This is the place with clean water and air
Movie stars may be able to surf in the winter
But we have this place for which we care

I want to stay in this place for some time more
I want to live under the peaceful clean sky
I suppose if I make it to eighty
I will give in and find a warm place to die

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