OUR COURTHOUSE IS BEAUTIFUL from the southwest corner on a clear April day the stone steps rising between two old redbuds their heads bushy with flowers and behind and above them the blocky white courthouse itself backed by blue sky the lawn is green daffodils surge the larger trees bud out the monument to all the soldiers and wars is solid even if some of the lettering is dissolving and the words go but my favorite monument is on this side screened by shrubs a tall square pillar with dried up faucets at its base "drink and be grateful" "thirsty and ye gave me drink" put up by the WCTU many decades ago in pure idealism and desire for new laws--did it have a statue on top? I can look this up--because we are a people of ideals and laws we will break our heads or others' on history if it won't give way to our banging we have sought a prosperity to end all prosperity and it never ends the empire of winners and losers the frontier of it is moving outward leaving us behind searching the strip malls for a measure of our limitations how harsh to love a place that seeks ideal laws and is always moving away from you I think it is in a desert now building fires and spreading ideals our heads have forgotten so sore from the banging but that's OK I can spin in circles till I stumble like a drunk in front of the WCTU monument I can watch the republic dissolve in the distance into empire and be thankful I'm still here and lost and ready to fall like a city of millions but really I'm just a dizzy smalltown provincial who loves April and stone steps and thinks our courthouse is beautiful