I've never lived in Portland, Oregon;
I've never been to Denver or Duluth;
I've never braved a southern hurricane
(and northern ones are weak, to tell the truth).

I've never scaled the slopes of Everest
nor gabbed with Oprah, Ellen, Jay, or Regis;
I never finished college; never dressed
in drag (the spectacle would be egregious)!

I've never been to London, Paris, Rome;
I've never worked with Justin Timberlake.
I rarely stray a hundred miles from home
(I'm forty-three years old, for heaven's sake!)

--- but I have seen you smile. And though it's been
a quarter-century, give or take a year,
it makes up for those things I haven't seen
or done; it fills my stuffy heart with cheer.