America, Why I Love Her

  By John Wayne

You ask me why I love her, well, give me time, I’ll explain.
Have you seen a Kansas Sunset, or an Arizona rain?

Have you drifted on a buoy down Louisiana way? Have you watched the cold fog drifting over San Francisco Bay?

Have you heard a Bob White calling in the Carolina pines? Or have you heard the bellow of a diesel at the Appalachia mines?

Does the call of the Niagara thrill you when you hear her waters roar? Do you look with awe and wonder at our Massachusetts shore? Where men who braved a hard new world first stepped on Plymouth’s rock? Do you think of them when you stroll along a New York City dock?

Have you seen a snow flake drifting in the Rockies way up high?
Have you seen the sun come blazing down from a bright Nevada sky?

Do you hail to the Columbia as she rushes to the sea? Or bow your head at Gettysburg in our struggle to be free?

Have you seen the mighty Teton’s, do you watch the eagle soar? Have you seen the Mississippi roll along Missouri’s shore?

Have you felt a chill at Michigan, when on a Winter’s day, her waters rage along the shore in thunderous display?

Does the word aloha make you warm? Do you stare in disbelief when you see the surf come roaring in at Waimea reef?

From Alaska’s cold to the Everglades, from Rio Grande to Maine, my heart cries out, my pulse runs fast at the might of her domain. You ask me why I love her? I have a million reasons why! My beautiful America, beneath God’s wide, wide sky!