Don Briggs is an ice climber. That can be a bit of a challenge when you live in a flat state like Iowa. But a few years ago, Briggs was looking up at an old corn silo and an idea struck like a bolt of lightning. The thing was about six stories tall. What if he covered it in ice? No, really. He ran hoses up to the top of the silo and left them running through the frigid, Midwestern night and the next day he had ice to climb. A new extreme winter sport was born. We'll join him while he's practicing for a silo climbing competition in Cedar Falls, Iowa, where he lives.

Then...
Parts of America are blanketed in ice, so we track down a poem about frozen conditions. It's called "Snow" and it was written by David Berman.

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Snow
by David Berman

Walking through a field with my little brother Seth

I pointed to a place where kids had made angels in the snow.
For some reason, I told him that a troop of angels
had been shot and dissolved when they hit the ground.

He asked who had shot them and I said a farmer.

 

Then we were on the roof of the lake.
The ice looked like a photograph of water.

Why he asked. Why did he shoot them.

I didn't know where I was going with this.

They were on his property, I said.

 

When it's snowing, the outdoors seem like a room.

Today I traded hellos with my neighbor.
Our voices hung close in the new acoustics.
A room with the walls blasted to shreds and falling.

We returned to our shoveling, working side by side in silence.

 

But why were they on his property, he asked.

 

from Actual Air, 1999
Open City Books, New York

Copyright 1999 by David Berman.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced with permission