This poem originally aired on "In the Moment" on SDPB Radio.
Ahead of Valentine's Day, SDPB's Jackie Hendry was thinking about her one true love. And she decided to write a poem about it.
Hendry read her South Dakota love poem on "In the Moment."
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SD is my true love
By Jackie Hendry
My first and truest and longest love is
South Dakota.
And I declare this with defiance
To every other love who has ever
Attempted to stake a claim:
You are in competition.
The land is itself and its own and
I belong to it.
The sky is a love letter, day and night.
God invented blue here!
What have you done?
My roots here aren’t half a generation deep
But we all know the zealousness of converts,
The stubbornness of first love that,
In only the most bull-headed hearts,
Grows and molds into a life—
Or something like that.
And I see flaws in the way of a hopeless devotee;
Critique in belief that you and I and we
Can do more and better to deserve
Each day’s love letters:
Glaring red
Amber grain
Silhouetted hills that say,
“Welcome back.”
That say, “I love you too.”
