Dams, Humans

Obligations and liberties intertwine.
Only humans would think to categorize
And collect them in separately labeled bins.

At liberty to take a detour during
A round of chores fulfilling obligations,
You took a scenic route around the desert,

Passing a recreational reservoir,
Boaters and paddle-boarders floating around
Behind the great sweep of the dam’s leaning wall.

Dams in other places have been in the news
A lot recently, for failing in floods, or
Being useless in droughts, or blown up in war.

Dams, like civilization, are both ancient
History and young among the behaviors
Of humanity. Small dams were being built

Well before the oldest evidence of them,
Most likely, and several thousand years ago,
Kings in the Fertile Crescent were already

Raising large ones, not only for agriculture,
But as forms of aggression, ways to divert
Upstream water from the irrigated fields

Of downstream rivals and enemies. Right now,
Thousands of years later, Egypt is angry
About dams being built upstream on the Nile.

A couple of months ago, a new hobby
Of scouring the drought-exposed bed of Lake Mead
For cars and human remains was all the rage,

And photographs were emerging of canyons
Drowned in Lake Powell for decades, bared by drought.
Last week, Derna was flattened by two failed dams

That gave way after being inundated
By extraordinary rains. This list goes on—
Dams exploded, dams made useless, dams collapsed,

Dams decommissioned so that they won’t collapse,
So that the salmon can run upstream again.
Clearly, dams are enormous obligations,

And, as clearly, people have taken many
Liberties with them. You probably haven’t
Heard the last with regard to either or dams.