Ponderosa Village

It was a good thing we had the coal plant
When the river flooded Fort Calhoun
Who knew you could drown a nuclear reactor?
But the traffic from the swing shift
And the power company’s tree­trimming crews
Makes it hard to pull out of Ponderosa Village
It reminded you of Bonanza
It was what we could afford
It’d be handy to pick your mom up from the airport
But like most TV cowboys
I never learned to ride a horse
Makes it hard to get out of Ponderosa Village
To call it a trailer is such a misnomer:
You can’t hitch it up, and it ain’t going nowhere
There’s a shared tornado shelter
Where we gather when the sirens ring
That last time it felt like New Year’s, with the women screaming
But a couple of power lines
And a couple of namesake pines
Were all it brought down on Ponderosa Village