The Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere
There’s not much here but fireweed
and wild salmonberries
and now we’ve got that growing heap
of rusted, unused ferries,
but you won’t see it after dark
and the sun will set by noon.
So, we’ll take the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere
and we’ll get to nowhere soon.
Every summer, we’ll chop our wood
and in the winter watch it burn.
In the coming years, we’ll re-elect
Don Young to another term.
Who knows, we might end up in some
Robert Service saloon
when we take the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere.
We’ll get to nowhere soon.
We’ll can tomatoes after lunch
and darn our socks at night.
When we drive out to the boonies under
the wispy Northern Lights,
the moon will be almost hidden
like a shiny, lost doubloon
and we’ll take the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere
so we’ll get to nowhere soon.
We’ll have to wash the cuts we get
hiking through the kettles
out by the airport runway where
an airplane sometimes settles.
It’s still hard to see a spouting whale
and not reach for a harpoon.
When we take the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere,
we’ll get to nowhere soon.
We have to import paper towels
and our canned goods come by freight.
There’s many things they don’t know about us
down in the lower forty-eight.
When the Savannah Sparrow tsip-tsips
its endangered tattoo,
we’ll take the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere
and we’ll get to nowhere soon.
Our troops may need more Kevlar vests
and more Abrams tanks,
yet we got 300 million dollars
and we have Don Young to thank.
Even though New Orleans drowned
that August afternoon,
we’ll take the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere
and we’ll get to nowhere soon.
We’ll take the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere
and we’ll get to nowhere soon.
Author’s Note
“Dubbed the ‘Bridge to Nowhere,’ the bridge in Alaska would connect the town of Ketchikan (population 8,900) with its airport on the Island of Gravina (population 50) at a cost to federal taxpayers of $320 million, by way of three separate earmarks in the recent highway bill. At present, a ferry service runs to the island, but some in the town complain about its wait (15 to 30 minutes) and fee ($6 per car).”
—Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D. “The Bridge to Nowhere: A National Embarrassment,” The Heritage Foundation
