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DALLAS CROW Diamonds from Mud There’s no rain forecast for midAugust . Already ponds have turned to mud, the mud to dirt, and dirt to dust. Dumb luck, the farmer says, powerless and mad as hell, but raised not to whisper damn even when the future as he knows it dims like the sun hidden by the dirty sky dims before noon. He planted these fields amid promises of no floods, due to the new dam upriver; now the manmade lake is mud. Though he appears calm, he’s mad at himself. Everything he’s done is dumb. Taking over the farm from his dad was dumb; he should have stayed in school. Dimly lit libraries were driving him mad, his girlfriend moved home, and his midterm grades made the choice clear. Mud is clear compared to his thoughts now. Damn this farm! Damn this drought! Damn everything he was ever taught! He’s not dumb; he studied soil like rabbis study the Talmud, but where did that get him? He starts crying, standing amid a field of dead crops. He’s no longer mad, not at himself. It was the task that was mad, he tells himself, and he’ll be damned if he ever stood a chance. His brain is humid, fecund, a jungle of thoughts, some dumb, he knows, but to brighten a dim future a man must craft diamonds from mud. If I have to, I’ll take up gay mud wrestling, he announces. I refuse to be mad at things I can’t fix. When the banker dims his lights before turning up that damn mile-long gravel driveway, he’ll expect my dumb acquiescence, like so many other middle age Midwestern fools, brains muddled by dumb beliefs. I won’t stay mad; I won’t be damned; the future is not dim. THE NATURAL WORLD ...

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