If I lived here <br />I would not find the cloud constructions <br />or the flattened topography remarkable. <br />I would not dwell on the broadband <br />black angus dominating the surface. <br />I would not be surprised <br />that the vocabulary of local radio contains more <br />than farfetched country lyrics and improbable preachers, <br />that there’s a place for Shostakovich, <br />who wrote this stunning piano piece <br />when he was just fifteen <br />as a dissonant soundtrack for a road <br />through a land of football <br />and beef and easy handshakes <br />and slow motion deliberations <br />that somehow fit together like equations, <br />where angus is still the watchword <br />but where Shostakovich ekes out a living too, <br />and signs his name on the back of the <br />“Greetings from Nebraska” postcard <br />in a cursive suggesting mirth.<br /><br />Michael Philips<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/shostakovich-in-nebraska/
