" Meet Cicero the raven in Jim Minick's book Fire is Your Water "So I said OK. Big Deal. It was just a matter of figuring out how to work my larynx and tongue And don't you dare cut any bird's tongue, especially mine By god of all rock piles, I'll stone you for sure. You humans think your'e the only ones. Conceited as damn eagles. Those two letters, really they're easy The K sound we say all the time, with crooks and caws and cockadoodledos (well, some of us do, anyway) I mean even crows can say K. O was a little harder. Had to pull it out of the middle of cronk and then put'm together. OK, already. OK as in OK Corral. OK as in yes, I'm hungry OK as in I'm going to KO you if you do
The mountains of Pennsylvania are filled with secrets, family and faith, as is the novel Fire is Your Water by Jim Minick, which takes place in this region of the country in 1953. Ada Franklin, the main character, has a rare gift for faith healing, known as "powwowing" among the Pennsylvania Dutch, but when the family barn catches fire, burning Ada's mother's hands and killing a cow, Ada finds she is afraid and loses her faith. Consequently, she also loses her ability to heal, and her spirit is broken. While working at the Howard Johnson's on the highway, Ada meets a coworker's nephew, Will Burk, who works at the Esso station next door. Will has his own doubts. He has not attended church si
