Sarah Palin

The Palin speech really is poetry. Read below. It makes me want to go to Alaska.

And getting up here I say:
It is the best road trip in America.
Soaring through nature’s finest show.
Denali, the great one,
Soaring under the midnight sun.
And then the extremes.

In the winter time it’s the frozen road
That is competing with the view
Of ice fogged frigid beauty.
The cold though.
Doesn’t it split the Cheechakos
From the Sourdoughs?

And then in the summertime,
Such extreme summertime.
About a hundred and fifty degrees
Hotter than just some months ago,
Than just some months from now,
With fireweed blooming
Along the frost heaves
And merciless rivers that
  are rushing
    and carving
      and reminding us that here, Mother Nature wins.

It is as throughout all Alaska
That big wild good life teeming
Along the road that is north
To the future.

I wonder who wrote it? It isn’t crazy-talk. “The cold though, doesn’t it split the Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs?” A cheechako is a newcomer to Alaska, while a sourdough is a long-time resident of Alaska. And “north, to the future?” That’s Alaska’s state motto. Denali? That’s the local Athabaskan name and official Alaskan name for Mount McKinley, and it means “The Great One.” It has greater bulk and rise that Everest, so it’s a good name.

Whatever else you might say about Palin, this part of the speech was directed to Alaskans, her constituency, and while people down here in the lower 48 might chuckle at it, it was actually a good political speech. It has nothing to do with the issue at hand — her resignation with a year and a half remaining — but then that is one of the hallmarks of a good political speech.

In short, don’t count Sarah Palin out. She may not get my vote, but if she learns to speak to the rest of America in this way then we can expect quite a bit from her in the coming years. After all, we’re suckers for poetry.