Sitting on the bus with my ears plugged

My sinuses throbbing like wrestling giants

Inside my cotton-filled head, I learned

Of a place more beautiful and sad

Than any I had ever seen.

The rolling hills were a young woman

Her emerald eyes gentle in the smoothest

Face. She laid on her side, cradling

One homesick girl close to her heart,

Singing the song of a tragic history.

Ireland swayed by outside that window

and she captured every sense inside

me. If I could change anything,

this would be it. I would change

the way we all see the world.

I would make every eye the admiring

Artist’s eye. Every heart the avid

Learner. Every hand the evermore

Interested researcher.

I would make us artists.

Each born of their heart-country.