Poem: When the Three Gorges Dam Collapses

An earth-shaking story that barely appears in any Western news source is evolving right now in China along the Yangtze River. Here is a "what-if" poem of what might happen in the near future.

When the Three Gorges Dam Collapses

On that terrible day, after months of rain,

when the Three Gorges Dam collapses,

it will spew 100,000 blue whales of water waiting

behind it like a tsunami wave down the Yangtze,

knocking down skyscrapers as shoddily built

as the dam itself like bowling pins,

erasing great cities of Wuhan, Nanking 
and Shanghai off the world map.

On that terrible day, and the days that follow,

600 million people will either lose their lives,

lose their homes, lose their livelihoods,

lose their minds, or lose their patience with

a government that cut corners on

the largest hydropower project in the world.

On that terrible day, they’ll also recall days

of its too quick construction,

of its more than mile-wide failures

of poor rebar, of substandard concrete

not connected to bedrock,

but with so much water held back

by its massive shoulders

it lengthened the day and flattened the poles.

On that terrible day, they will blame Tibet,

where headwaters of the Yangtze spring,

on that terrible day, they will blame Western

engineers who pointed out flaws of the project

and were called racists because of it,

on that terrible day, they will blame 
Mao Tse-Tung, who, after the great floods of 1949, 
brought Communism to China 
and reseeded an old idea

to build a Three Gorges Dam 
so it would never happen again.

But on that terrible day

it will happen again,

on that terrible day, and the days that follow,

not only will China lose countless souls,

not only will China lose 
its formidable face forever,

not only will China be 
thrown back to a medieval past,

but countries of the whole world 
will also groan in pain

from the repercussions of its ancient 
and once-wise brother 
sold out to the mythology

of short-term gain.

~ Cynthia Gallaher (July 19, 2020)

◦

Poem: When the Three Gorges Dam Collapses

Sestina poem for Bernie Sanders

Way back in 1986, poet Allen Ginsberg wrote a poem about Bernie Sanders. I am no Allen Ginsberg, but today I offer a recent sestina poem I wrote in Bernie Sanders' voice (words my own, but inspired by Bernie).

A sestina is a poetry form comprising six stanzas of six lines and a final triplet. All stanzas have the same six words at the line-ends in six different sequences that follow a fixed pattern. All six words appear in the closing three-line envoi.

The six words in this poem are: grassroots, billionaires, our, wages, street, debt.

##

Bernie Sanders Sestina

(in the voice of Bernie, words are mine)

was it worth a lifetime dedicated to grassroots

ideals, while one percent of our wealth lies in billionaires’

hands? I’m old, you’re young, it’s Our

Revolution, to speak up for higher wages,

to call out the special interests, Wall Street,

the cushy expungers who’ve left us in debt.

it’s not to Congress, but to you I’m indebted,

let’s take the grassroots

to the White House, take our voices into the streets,

hold onto what’s valuable save the greed of billionaires,

max up the minimum wage,

declare health and education ours.

will it take the time Egyptians built the pyramids for our

younger generation to pay off their student debts?

can we expect wage slave owners to automatically offer decent wages?

would a skyscraper bow down to its landscape of grassroots?

could a pseudo-billionaire promise to make us all billionaires?

will this highway to hell we’re on pave over our hometown streets?

to comprehend our grave issues doesn’t require street

smarts. Or a math degree to see the tatters of our

economy. There’s been an uptick of billionaires,

yet with heads barely above water, the body politic now drowns in debt,

if we’d grab one end of a rope at the grassroots,

we might buoy up our backsides with a living wage.

corrupt leaders don’t believe that the wages

of sin is death. They look at our powerful words as bearing no street

value. Lavish lawn parties are their idea of grassroots.

they believe in holding our

infrastructure, climate future & immigrant children as bargaining tools, debts

that everyone in America will pay for, except the billionaires.

the rich in compassion and action are our spiritual billionaires,

but big business and big pharma won’t pay their wages,

to look out for one another should be our primary debt,

instead of chasing the empty dream of easy street,

it’s not my America, or your America, or their America, but our

America, that wouldn’t have happened from the get-go without the grassroots.

might even billionaires soon awaken to grassroots ideals? To realize equal

wages are for all our benefit? Banded together, might we finally arise from

sewer depths of debt to solid street level? Sound pretty good?

                                                           ~ Cynthia Gallaher

◦

Sestina poem for Bernie Sanders

How my stepdad dyed the Chicago River green on St. Paddy's Day

My stepfather John worked as an administrator for the Port of Chicago back in the 1960s, which had its offices at Navy Pier. One of his duties was to check on all the bridges and bridgetenders along the Chicago River. He also personally presented Hizzoner Mayor Richard J. Daley with the Port of Chicago budget every year.

A special side job he was assigned and undertook was to find the dye that could tint the Chicago River green for St. Patrick's Day. He journeyed from vendor to vendor to find a powerful dye that could do the job. Eventually, he was presented with an orange powder that magically turned green when it hit water. There is no formal record of my stepdad's role in this St. Patrick's Day tradition. Seems politicians & plumbers of that 1960s era have taken most of the credit.

However, the following poem I wrote will always be a testament to my stepfather, John, and the spiritual generations after him that enjoy his small, but powerful contribution to Chicago history.

The Leprechaun from Blue Island Avenue

Who Dyed the River Green

"Methinks my own soul must be a bright invisible green."

                                                                           ~ Thoreau

He’d touch one magic crystal

to a bucket of water,

and there brimmed Ireland,

greener than a sheep’s hill in spring.

Instead of chasing rainbows

he pulled the brightest green ribbon

    from the one arching across

State Street from the lake,

and wove wet edges of downtown Chicago

to a new tradition,

a new passion for the river;

bolted to the architecture with bridges,

this wide, wet meander, until today,

as plain as the weathered deck of a barge.

A new tradition, too,

receiving another father

after losing a St. Patrick’s Day dad

years before,

a new father,

who crawled into the world

on the back of a crab,

who mixed drinks

in his father’s Prohibition tavern

on Blue Island Avenue,

whipping red grenadine with ice

    into Pink Ladies--

lining up shots & beers with his eyes closed,

swirling crème de menthe and leaf sprigs

into long Mint Juleps.

Years later, nurses pinned

a fresh shamrock

to my March son’s receiving blanket

the day I took him home.

But way back,

in our knotty pine rec room,

the tequila sunrises

    tumbled in on themselves

     like lava lamps,

made by a man

who thrilled to entertain with jiggers of fluids

and colors and shaved ice

for all our wedding, communion and even funeral guests.

Who else could it have been

to send out the speedboats

like crazed blenders

    into the Chicago River,

dumping bags of orange crystals

that exploded into its other,

churning up a new wardrobe

for the clang, clang,

workingman’s river

until now, clad in railroad overalls,

the river that found itself

wearing one long leprechaun sleeve

in time for the parade.

He crawled into the world

on the back of a crab,

and left in the balance,

and every Mid-March,

I glance down from

my glass-lined lookout,

I see the gum-white Wrigley Building

and the Tinker-toyed Marina City,

I see the frilly floats line up along Wacker Drive,

I see the boatswains and bridgetenders

     and bags of dye,

     and the swirl of water

Photo credit: Barry Butler

     under outboard motors

as if he were standing there still,

along cement docks,

reciting the formula.

And even after traffic

begins to roar its way out

from the city,

the river glows still,

a more brilliant green at twilight,

curving at my feet

into a perfect smile,

a reverse rainbow,

the pots of gold in three places

leprechauns never look,

mid-March, a time to let the past go,

the lost map of my blood father,

a time to look to the future

growth of my son,

and a time made new every year

by a man

more a father than my real father,

more magician than barsman

     from a Blue Island. 

##

The above poem is included in my poetry collection about Chicago Swimmer's Prayer. 

◦

How my stepdad dyed the Chicago River green on St. Paddy's Day

Chinese New Year Poem

Happy Chinese New Year

you make a mistake, erase it from the board.

you tire of dabbing the bottom of the paint cup.

you want a fresh start,

to break free from the same-old,

be brand new, but still be you.

China? They know how to work with

the same old thing,

have been at it

for five thousand years.

so every Chinese New Year’s,

there are reasons we clean our houses

from top to bottom, sweep away

last year’s bad luck with a broom.

what better time to wear new clothes,

make up with friends you’ve had fights with,

paint the front door with a fresh coat of red,

spread out bright flowers and bowls of glowing fruit.

most of all, spill by the hundreds to line streets for

parades of dragon puppets 50-people long,

looping and curving into a long-life ahead,

to see lions dance with roosters dance with monkeys,

and watch clowns mime, somersault, walk on stilts.

gongs and cymbals ring through icy air

warming the winter February here in Chinatown

into a new spring we can’t yet see, but can imagine.

even our ancestors celebrate,

and clap their hands from a faraway place.

there are reasons this happens over and over,

because no matter how old our culture grows,

each year is new to its people,

we are all young ones in this ancient world,

with hopes, ideas, heartbeats

that spark and pop

like a huge braid of firecrackers,

there are countless reasons to believe

that everything we are

will fill up the next year

to the brim.

~ Cynthia Gallaher ◦

Chinese New Year Poem

Solar Eclipse August 21, 2017 Poem

moon pulls a room-darkening shade

across the sun, a small circle

to have a private conversation,

a face-to-face performance appraisal

between this midsize star

and earth’s orbiter

after nearly a century.

the moon first gives sun honor,

praises its radiance,

while the sun bathes the side

of the moon we can’t see

in invisible, noncommittal light.

the moon, more assertive than usual,

asks for higher recognition in the solar system,

despite its pockmarked, dusty complexion,

telling the sun it needs a promotion,

after toiling and twirling

all these years for earth,

never revealing its bad side,

no matter how much it wanted to.

showing off now as it casts cities

and states one by one into shadow,
however fleeting,
hurrying on to make the next impression.

still seeing no response from the sun,
the moon turns to the words of man,

speaking the language of each country

it traced in its former eclipsical paths.

reciting to the sun countless poems

that poets have written

about its fullness and mystery,

believing earthly rumors

woven on terra firma

might make good references.

but by August 22,

the eclipse comes to an end.

the moon is disappointed.

but the sun smiles,

opens its round yellow mouth

and tells the moon,

“I know it’s been

a long 99 years,

spaceships have landed

on your surface in the interim,

for the first time,

earthlings have left

footprints across you,

stuck flags in your face,

alien colonies make

way stations

on your

dark side,

nonetheless,

you continue to reflect,

to orbit, wax whole, wane crescent,

play hide and seek,

making the same loyal dance

every 28 nights,

nonetheless, you want an evaluation?

how about a question?

can what I say or

any earthbound poem

still the twice-daily tides you create

that rock the world?”

                        ~ Cynthia Gallaher

◦

Solar Eclipse August 21, 2017 Poem