Job's Wisconsin

The Book of Job, chapters 38-41 (a paraphrase)

Tell me, who is it that churns up the mighty Wolf River like a cheap washing machine for you at Big Smokey Falls?

Have you ever rounded up herds of mosquitoes and sent them on their summer stampede?

Do you know why the ferocious but slow snapping turtle springs his jaws like a trap and won’t let go?

Who can call up Aurora Borealis for a command performance above Nicolet as you lie on your backs in the long wet grass? She dances through several wardrobe changes and there you sit slack-jawed and prostrate.

Can you pour humidity through a sieve upon old women and play havoc with their permanents? Or send forth the sun’s heat so fierce that white central Wisconsin thighs stick to black vinyl car seats?

Can you pull in a trout with a fish hook or put him in a net? Or, are you only privy to where the bluegill lives? Have you ever caught a fish big enough to eat, or fried one in a pan under the moon at Devils Lake?

Do you know why all the traffic gets dammed up on I-90 just south of Madison precisely when your bladders are about to rupture? Tell me if you do. And then begins to flow again as if nothing happened?

And who endowed the bald eagle with eyes that can see for a mile? Even around that bend in the Wolf River to see if you’re still together.