Sweeping over the Arctic Archipelago, puckering nipples and chapping faces across Nunavut: in Grise Fiord, Resolute, Gjoa Haven; crossing into Manitoba, freezing the top layers of Island Lake, Gods Lake, nameless ponds, dew crunching underfoot. The front gathers, pushes over Winnipeg, Grand Forks, Fargo, Lincoln, on it comes, barreling through tornado alley to meet its match: Spring! A current weaves a lothario path across the Gulf of Mexico, up through Anguilla, Santo Domingo, Port de Paix, Nassau, bringing the scent of cinnamon, slums, and rotting magnolia leaves, trailing across tobacco farms, mighty rivers, strip malls, state colleges, Army barracks, drained wetlands, golf courses. Pushing west into dry Pacific air. Blowing across the southwest, arid and punishing—imagine dustbowls, cow skulls, locusts, parched earth— rolling off the Rockies, faster as it flows east. Sisters clash and mingle in the wide open skies of the continent’s midpoint—dry meets damp, warmth amassed and shuddering into updrafts and squalls, rushed by the eager fingers of their cold northern lover. Thunderheads build, form, break apart, and build again, gathering strength unseen by those below. North, south, east, west, we’ll put these people to the test. Havoc’s in play, the winged creatures sense it, though even the crows don’t know the scope of what’s to come.

 

Hover at the midpoint. Turn the radio dial, hear snatches of the lives below. Listen.

 

Crows rustle on the wires over Main Street, over Mondragon’s Emporium and Dunleavy’s Fine Shoes (&Shoe Repair); over The Bluebird Cafe and the bank and the old town square. Black feathers lift and wheel past the liquor store and a shuttered B&B, past power lines, houses, cars and churches, over the cemetery, streets giving way to fields, farms laid out in a neat expanse: the vast acreage of agribusiness, a few sturdy family farmers holding on, green squares of corn and soy bringing order; and in the center, down the old county road, not far south of Johnson’s Creek just past the Infamous Elm, Rose’s overgrown reluctant acres.

 

One small, tangly patch, well pulsing like a heart. Listen.