They call it flyover from the coasts and he has heard the term,
He calls it home and he does not let the insult confirm,
Any feeling of inadequacy about the place he chose to stay,
The flyover country feeds the coasts three times a day.
Flyover country, that is where the wheat comes from,
Flyover country, that is where the work gets done,
Flyover country, that is where the country still believes,
In the things that hold together what the coast receives.
He has been to both the coasts and he has seen the life they lead,
He returned with a more complicated view and the same creed,
That the interior is not the lesser reading of the edge,
It is the center of the country and the ledge.
From which the whole thing hangs in the balance of the real,
The farmers and the ranchers and the workers who still feel,
The flyover country in their bones and in their daily act,
Flyover country is the irreducible fact.