At the Edge of the Wind Farm

Before dawn the turbines stand in fog, tall metronomes above sleeping soy fields. Red beacons blink like patient embers inside a sky still tasting of iron.

When the wind arrives, each blade lifts a slow white shoulder and begins to turn. The whole ridge hums under its breath, as if a choir were hidden in the ground.

Farm trucks crawl the gravel roads below, their headlights combing dew from fence wire. A child at the bus stop cups her thermos, watching weather become visible.

By noon, shadows wheel across the barns; clouds break open on sheets of tin. Power leaves this place without a sound, carried in lines finer than spider silk.