A brief sampling of Steven Blum’s text: i. The morning was already lost between hot and hotter. This was his private spot by the river where his Ojibwe ancestors once hunted, fished, and raised their young. Colors, streams and mud trails known only to the first people in this land. They called it Michigama (Great water). The world of those who came before. One day far to the east another child of another tribe would look out at the ocean and see a faint black dot in the water. Boats were approaching. ii. Red eggs and ginger in Oakland Chinatown to celebrate a new granddaughter. Someday Paw Paw will pass on stories of the great depression and begging for fish heads in the back of restaurants iii. 4 a.m. in Shelby, Iowa, and he’s already been up an hour. That’s the time to harvest sweet corn. There used to be real money in it. Black coffee burns on the way down. He wonders, how much longer? Every year it’s hotter and harder, the margin smaller. Proud to try, ashamed to fail