Dawn

Last night I slept with all of the windows open. There was a gentle breeze and the weather was extremely mild. This morning I was awakened by a bird proudly annoucing his presence with his three note symphony from a tree just to the North of where I live. An echo was coming from a tree just to the South of where I live.
It was still fairly dark outside. I got up and made some coffee, the first thing that I do each morning now that bacon is no longer in my diet. I drank the coffee on the porch, watching the horizon begin its daily blush.
The black fingers of the trees extended up through the band of pink slowly spreading on the horizon. I began to think of all of the dawns I have watched in the past. Watching the dawn has always been a pleasant time as it usually means a day without working for someone else. A day when I can procede at my own plodding pace, stopping frequently to review what I have done so there are no steps to correct and do over.
I have watched the dawn in many places. The desert, the mountains, the Great Plains, the seashore, and the concrete canyons of great cities. A Massachusetts boy that had laid his head to rest on foreign pillows far from home. Far from the gentle Springs and the tolerant Summers with their fried clams and scallops and the tingling Falls and the bracing Winters of this dear and tolerant state.
I was young, in my twenties, when I realized that there was no place that I would rather be than Massachusetts. Where else in this country does the State House have a Sacred Cod and a statue of a hooker out front. Food and tolerance, signs of a decent place to live. I have been hungry and I have seen bigotry but this is the only place that I know of where bigotry is not tolerated.
There is a place that I hold dear in my memory. It is in the Public Garden in Boston. It is in the westernmost corner along Beacon street. It is a statue of an angel, dedicated to Doctor Morton and celebrates the discovery of anaesthesia. Not a general that brought glory or a statesman that brought law but a man that brought relief from human suffering.
The problems of the day are here but they are not ruling the day. It is a peaceful place where education and health care and tolerance rule. The land of the bean and the cod, the land of Longfellow and Thoreau and Thornton Wilder, green as it always was, and green as it will always be. Here is the birthplace of Fig Newtons and John Adams, the Stanley Steamer, and the clambake. Opposite the State House is the St. Gaudens bas-relief, in the Public Gardens are statues of ducklings, both celebrating the tolerance and gentleness of this small state. It is where I will rest my head and my heart.
It is where he built his cabin, where he grew his peas, where he walked the Cape, and where he drew up his bible for the civilized man. The last major disaster we had here was a molasses flood. All are welcome here and all are safe here as long as the Legislature is not in session.
There will be more dawns. There will be more beans. There will be no more beds among small people with small minds and small tolerance.