Culled out from the Amazon expansion list, oh Charlotte!

Culled out from the Amazon expansion list, oh Charlotte!
by Paul Turner

We have the banks
The healthcare giants
We have the race cars
And the NASCAR museum
And a major nuclear utility

But we’re not on the short list
Tho’ we have land and an airport to ballyhoo
(Second campus blues)
Amazon has announced the twenty contenders and it’s not us

We have uptown
We have Billie Graham and his afterglow
And major and minor professional teams
And the Broadway roadshows
And arts and crafts and ballet
And grandparents running to help relocated banking and healthcare children

The bottom fifth children in the local trenches are not skipping, clawing to the better, higher slots
Many service jobs await, wages and hours so low down, and little else
We have statewide and Sabbath leaders, stuck in second gear about coming together and next steps,
While ordinary folks do not visit homes across ethnic lines, breaking bread, offering intimacy.

Don’t get it?
Where’s the initiative, the wide-eyed awareness, the zeitgeist, the grit?
We ain’t got it, dear Charlotte.