No Riviera or 
   Venice Beach
No Grand Canyon
   or Grand Cayman
No Niagara or
   Alberta Falls
No Alps or Andes
   or Tetons
No Bay of Fundi.
We’re not one of
the ten wonders
of the world. 
Around here we live in
the plain language of the
Licking River and it’s North
Fork. Our Blue Lick Springs
is buried beneath road fill
and our Ohio Valley choked
with coal plants.
And yet our rolling hills are not
stripped or fracked and a kayak 
on Johnson Creek reveals hawk
beaver, muskrat, mink. wild
turkey and blue heron.
In high summer there’s a certain
slant of late light and as darkness
comes to this ordinary land
there is the fledgling chirp
of swallows under the eaves,
a vast ocean of peak firefly,
and the mad dash of hungry bat.