Before the dust came
It was a plentiful paradise
To farmers, a little taste of heaven
Advertisements of giant crops brought
More farmers
They plowed and broke the soil
Soon
The once chocolate colored soil turned pale and dry 
No rain came
Topsoil blew away

Then the dust came
Killing crops
It came in wicked windy storms
Blocking out the light
Red, gray, and black blizzards of
Parching dust

The men would watch
As it came near
Standing in the meager fields
Watching
Waiting
For the dust to come and take away
The fruits of their devoted labor
Helpless as their crops withered and died 

Dust everywhere
Barricaded people in homes
People breathed, Drank
Ate dust
Had to wear cloth over mouths
Wet sheets cover doors
Just to keep out the
Depressing dust

With the dust came Jackrabbits
from the hills
Devouring everything
Farmers rounded them up into pens
They clubbed them to death 

April 14, 1945
Worst day of all
Thousands of birds fleeing
From a great windy wall of blistering black dust
People hid in cars from the dust
It was called
Black Sunday

10 years of living hell
Many died of
Dust pneumonia
Choking on dust and spitting it up
Dust meant death

Farmers lost hope
Friends and family parted
Rural communities unraveled
Youth and Determination was ground into the dust itself
But
Those of Last Man’s Club stayed
Vowing to fight the dust
And they did

The rain finally came
Bringing hope on its wet wings
The skies wept over the parched ground

Flickers of soft gold bounce through the haze of sunset. The small lights dancing merrily like candles floating on water. Their mystic glow illuminating the face of a girl. Her youthful green eyes bright with the excitement of seeing these small bearers of light for the first time. She giggles as each small flame came to life before fading once more.

“I told you! I told you that tiny flames were lighting up the night” a boy told her proudly as though he had been the one who created the fantastic phenomenon.

“Why do they keep doing that?” She asked the world, not directing her question at anyone in particular.

“I know...” he whispered to her.

“No you don't...”

“I do too, I'm older-”

“By only a week.”

“I still know more than you.” he huffed. “Ask me why they flicker.”

“Fine,” she sighed, irritated but still curious. “Why do they do that?”

“they flicker on and off because each one grows tired and needs to take a break. Then, when their energy returns they light up again.” He tells her confidently.

“That's silly.”

“Its true.” He retorted, his voice grave and serious.

So it was, each night of that long summer they would wait to see the tiny flames. Each night she would wonder why the lights would flash. Each night he would come up with an answer until one day they both knew the real reason why the lights flashed and they shared that reason with their children.  Those mystical flames were fireflies.

Once upon a time, there lived a poor woodcutter and his wife. They had two small children, a boy named Hansel and a girl named Gretel.

       They lived in a cottage on the outskirts of a large forest. Daily, the woodcutter went into the forest and collected wood to sell. The poor  woodcutter, no matter how hard he worked, could never gather enough wood to to pay for food to feed his family. There were many times when his family went to bed hungry.

       To ignore their hunger, the family took walks through the forest  together. Every time they did, the woodcutter warned his children to not stray from the path or they would get lost. Hansel, the younger of the two, heeded his father’s warnings and held his father’s hand.
Gretel, on the other hand, didn’t want to hold onto her father’s hand and was always wandering a little off the path but always stayed in sight.

      Over time, Gretel grew bored of walking on the same old path. She wanted to see what was beyond it. Gretel decided that she would ignore her father’s warnings and leave the path. She would be fine as long as she left something to mark her way back to the path.

      Gretel reached into her pocket and pulled out a small bag of colored strings. She tied one string to the branch of a bush near the path and wandered off into the forest. Every so often, Gretel would stop walking and tie a string to the branch of a tree or bush. She continued tying strings onto branches until she forgot to. Gretel continued to wander deeper into the darkening forest. The rest of the family had continued on their walk and hadn’t noticed Gretel wander off into the forest. When they returned home they were shocked to find that Gretel was nowhere to be found. Hansel, being only four at the time began to cry because he wanted his older sister. The woodcutter worried that his daughter had gotten lost or even kidnapped by the witch of the forest.

       With the encouragement of his crying son, he took up his axe and set out to search for his missing daughter.  He searched for Gretel for days and the days became weeks. But he could not find her. Finally, his wife convinced him that there was no use to try searching for their daughter anymore. She was lost and there was barely any chance that she could still be alive.

       The years passed and the woodcutter’s family changed. His wife died and his son grew older. The heartbroken woodcutter remarried to a kind-hearted woman. The memory of there ever being a Gretel faded as they gave up all hope that she was still alive.

       One day, while Hansel was out collecting more wood to help his father, he came across a section of forest he had never seen before. Curious, he went deeper into the forest and looked around, marking a path using round white stones. He walked along for some time until he reached a clearing. To his surprise, a small cottage stood in the clearing. If it wasn’t strange enough for a cottage to be in the middle of nowhere, it was even stranger for the cottage to be covered in peppermint candies.

         Hansel was hungry from his long trip through the forest. “Maybe whoever lives in this strange cottage will give me some food.” He walked up to the cottage door and knocked. A cloaked person answered the door.

          “Who knocked on my door and why did you do so?” The person asked and looked at him. The person’s voice was that of a young woman.

           “It was I who knocked on your door. My name is Hansel and I was wondering if you had any food that you could spare for a hungry woodcutter. May I ask who you are and why you live in such a secluded place?” Hansel answered.

           “Well, Hansel, I do believe I have some extra food. If you would come in, please. You do not need to know my name. I live here because this is where my mentor once lived before two children pushed her into an oven.”  She went into the cottage and removed her cloak. “Your name… it sounds so familiar to me… I think I had a younger brother with that name.”

       “Why did the two children push your mentor in? What happened to your brother?”

         “My mentor had been a witch of sorts and the children had thought that she wanted to turn them into gingerbread. I don’t know what happened to him. As a child I had wandered off into the forest and gotten lost. I never saw my father or my brother again. The witch took me in and cared for me as if I were her own daughter.”

        “Strange, when I had been very little, my older sister had wandered off into the forest and was never seen again. Her name was Gretel.” “When he said is sister’s name the young woman’s face paled. “What is wrong?” he asked her.

         “That name… My name is Gretel.” She looked at Hansel. “Could it be that you are my brother? My father had been a woodcutter…”

         “Gretel could it really be you?” He stepped closer to look at her. “It is…” He hugged her. “Oh, Gretel. Father always regretted the day he stopped looking. Deep down both of us knew that you were in this forest somewhere.”

           Hansel helped Gretel to pack her things and led her home. There, she had a tearful reunion with her father. She was sad to hear that her mother had died but was glad to finally be back with her family.