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To folks I'm like a deviant across my culture’s wall;
I'm really just of normal height, but feel as if I'm tall;
My hair light brown and eyes of blue, here that's the normal case;
But might as well be black with brown, as from a different race.

And yet I'm of majority – for no one fits in here;
The town is cosmopolitan with race and culture near;
The old, the young; the in, the out; the up, the down; the sad;
And every mark distinguishing, not one we wish we had.

It's urban, yet its rural life predominates its ways;
It's straight, yet under its veneer their lives a world of gays;
It's modern in technology, old-fashioned in its thought;
It's middling in economy, but cheap is what is sought.

A center for the farming trade, supplying all their needs;
A social service hub for folks; land titles for their deeds;
Cathedrals serving smaller towns; and higher-ed as well;
The books, and courts, and medics round, as good as one can tell.

Small business booms, and eateries spring up here overnight;
Tree huggers on ascendancy protecting all in sight;
The broken and the wounded come down streams into this pond,
Get on their feet, find ways in life, for jobs must wander on.

We have not come to grips with this big shift within our town;
We hope the “other's” will move on, not stay and settle down;
For deviance we shun, reject, look down on every day;
We don't know what to do with those who differ in their way.

Now suddenly I fit right in – 'tis different we all are!
It's what we share, between ourselves, (though seems a bit bizarre);
As freedom has arrived in town, we all must cut some slack,
And share with others what we bring, so no one suffers lack.

A change there's been, upheaval here, which started with the plant –
New blood, new thought, new people ’round not just our mom and aunt;
It's like the north where all arrive tradition in their hand –
“Jump in and have some fun”, they say, “jump in and lend a hand”.

So here like larger world out there we too are mixed around;
Do life in spaces made for us now space for us is found.
This microcosm of our world – new hope for all today –
We've reached a tipping point in town – now all can live and play.

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