Dear Portland

When I first came to you
I was not alone, but
soon after found myself more
alone than I'd ever been
before. More totally alone
even than when I walked on
the other side of the world
with barely an ability to
communicate, not to mention
anyone to call a friend.
In the years since
I first started calling you
home, I've known nearly
every imaginable state, from
not being able to walk to
not being able to love.
For some reason, you
remind me of every
beautiful city I've ever
lived in, in any part of
the world. In your
corner stores I see
the New York City I knew
as a boy. In your ritzy
neighborhoods I see
the coast of France. In your
hectares and hectares of low-rise,
single-family dwellings I
see China. Not long after
I arrived I was overcome
with a sense that I had
reached my final destination;
I'm truly home, at last, and
often I wonder how it
could have taken me so
long to find you, lying
in wait for me here all
along. Most of all, what
I love about your streets
and cityscapes is they
remind me so much of
that quintessential city I
grew up in, odd as that fact
is for many to comprehend.
You've got the same verve
and the same defiant insistence
that you are in fact the center
of everything valuable that
happens in this country. With
the ghosts of cowboys in your
alleys, the memories of Klondike
gold diggers in your shadows,
the essential battle between
independence and everything
else unfolding each night on
your boulevards while the world
sleeps. The scariest thing,
to me and everyone else I
talk to, is that I feel now
I can finally die, happily,
in your arms. I had a good
feeling when I came that you
held great promise for me;
indeed, it's true. I would never
expect or demand anything
of you, but I do have one
small request: just don't change
before I go. Don't change a thing.
All my love, Adam

(2007)