Rio Grande River

In “The Crossing” by Victoria Blanco, the Rio Grande of her youth is of a mighty force of nature, its undercurrents capable of sweeping adults in knee-deep high water. And, like the death of her brother’s friend from jumping into the Rio Grande, she realizes she was watching the slow death of the Rio Grande—that it was growing shallow from the irrigation canals built by farmers in New Mexico and Texas and heightened by climate change. Thirty years later, the Rio Grande River at the border is a dry riverbed supporting a steel fence of a border.

Maps

In “A Map of Lost Things,” Jamila Osman shares her savoring of working with her father’s maps, knowing where they were going on a road trip. She writes, “maps held a type of magic for my father…he would point to where his aunts...