In the years before climate change

several times a winter

cold air from the plains

swept across Lake Michigan

collected moisture and descended

on what us locals called The Region

Gary   Hammond   and Whiting

first as fluffy fist-sized flakes

then as an unrelenting pin-point fury

that for a while blanketed the landscape

of mills   refineries   and broken dreams

glossed over the tenement houses

in need of roofing   guttering   and hope

and re-painted pristine white

the brackish Calumet River

and the crumbling hulk of Falstaff Brewing

that squatted on the shore of the great lake

as a harbinger of cancer   heart failure

and unrealized expectations—we needed

those storms like thirsty needed drink

and greeted the inevitable spring thaw

with a mixture of joy and trepidation

as pot-holed roads   broken bikes

discarded baby buggies and dirty lives

resurfaced with a death’s head grin

as once wind-sculpted drifts

retreated into parking lot corners

transformed into ugly chunks of gray and black

and left us to shoulder up   strap on our courage

and retake the cauldrons of US Steel

climb the girders at American Bridge

and recast the dies inside Chicago Magnesium.