One Hundred and Seven years had passed between my father’s departure from Mississippi and my arrival in his hometown, so I looked first to the elements that would remain constant—the bright skies and the starry heavens that dominate the flat plains of the delta. The farmlands’ dirt was incredibly black, scorched the previous fall in the annual burn to rid the land of crop residue and prepare the fields for spring seeding. Swamps pockmarked the valley; frequent thunderstorms fed the streams and rivers. The Mississippi cut a shifting path through the landscape and hurricane winds swept through the delta the summer my father fled north.