NVN Saturday: NORTH AMERICAN MIGRATION
by Elizabeth Kerlikowske
Canadian wildfire smoke created a hazy red-orange sky over Lake Michigan on June 23 at the Michigan-Huron watershed. Wildfire smoke is causing poor air quality in the Great Lakes this week. —Fox Weather
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Just a whiff of Armageddon seems worse than a year of Covid precautions. Canadian fires. Some jet stream sending a radar plume of it like a purple hot dog cuddled up to the blue bun of Lake Michigan. Thinner but more toxic than mountain fog, smoke blurs horizons and pulls a gray film over every noun, smothered in adjectives. Diluted sun thins the smoke like cream into soup, a color variation, same raw taste. Ash residue floats on bird baths. Only the crows sing. It’s a song they learned on their migration from Hell. Not long ago. North of Thunder Bay.
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Elizabeth Kerlikowske is a Michigan native. She is a poet, visual artist, and mother of three. Her publications include dozens of print and online journals, five books of poetry, and inclusion in several anthologies. She would never live anywhere else.