Iowa Gothic

jazzforthecaptain:

• On humid September nights, sit on the back stairs and listen to the chirps of crickets in the timber. In October, listen to the screams of rabbits, dying in the teeth of foxes. In November the woods and fields are silent; by December there is nothing to hear, anywhere, at all.
• Every seven years, the cicadas come. You will know them by their wingbeats. You will know them by their drumbeats. You will run, but you will never run fast or far enough.
• The Mississippi River can be called by many names: Big Muddy, Old Man River, Old Blue, The Gathering of the Waters. The other names must be whispered, or screamed at midnight with your hands full of rich river mud and pig’s blood. Sometimes the river answers. You hope it doesn’t.
• “Des Moines” is derived from Rivière de Moines, meaning ‘River of the Monks.’ The reason has been lost. Sometimes, the Des Moines River flows red. Sometimes, people who wade into its waters have been healed of their maladies. Other times, they are never seen again.
• There is beauty in the fields by the light of a full spring moon. The new corn, the new leaves of soybean are touched with silver, and the slender, long-legged shadows that walk the rows have never been more visible.

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