It feels So Good Calling Arizona my Home

It feels So Good Calling Arizona my Home

by Ernie McCray

I’m so proud
of Arizona,
my home state,
for the mood I’m in.
For something
other than
its beauty
which I’ve basked in
since who knows when,
having hiked among its
Saguaros
and along the lovely trails
in Sabino Canyon,
in the Old Pueblo
when I was a little boy
not many years old;
having slept
among the Havasupai
next to a waterfall
in the Grand Canyon
when I was barely
thirty years old;
having witnessed
sunrises and sunsets
that soothed
my mind and soul
as I dealt with
Arizona’s crimes
against my “kind,”
against my very humanity,
a burden on my dignity,
on my desire to live free…

And over the years
I’ve fought back tears
feeling the state
would never shed itself
of its hateful ways,
watching it grudgingly
honor Martin Luther King
with a holiday
in his name,
observing in a state of shock
when it removed
Chicano Studies
from its schools
with not as much
as a hint of shame.

And when it opened
an outdoor jail facility
on the desert floor,
touching the limits
of what it’s like
to be inhumane,
I thought Arizona
would never change –
and then it stepped up to the plate
in our troubled society
and knocked one out of the park
for human decency,
being counted
when the country faced a crisis
where right was needed
to conquer a wrong.

Seeing Arizona
taking on
flushing a demon
from the White House
where he never belonged
fills me with a form
of pride
I didn’t know I owned.

It feels so good
right now
calling Arizona
my home.