I still call it “the Swamp”
where thirsty Valley Oaks
centuries-old shed their limbs
among barkless skeletons,
bleached bones like flesh
waiting to fall into the next life.
Half-mile across on Christmas Eve,
1955, the Kaweah flowed to the doors
of our ’53 Buick—headlights
diving into oncoming wakes
like Captain Nemo’s submarine.
Not free to run when it wants,
we have held the river up
in the hills for sixty winters,
only to let it run all at once
across the Valley to irrigate
orchards and summer crops—
no kids fishing from shady banks
a lazy river recharging wells.
We can’t fill the dams we have,
yet cotton trailer billboards suggest
that dams can make more water
without looking to the sky.
drycrikjournal 
Magical thinking, huh, John? When will people get it? Never, if it is about the survival of the ways things have always been. Change, big change, is hard to accept. And there are no consequences for squandering our precious water. I am afraid to ask my sister-in-law growing tangerines in Exeter how her well is doing. She will probably snap my head off, blaming people like me who accept the consequences of unsound ag practices for her water woes. How is it that the reality of a limited water supply is now another branch of the culture wars? Sending you and Robin the warmest of greetings. Great poem. Marla
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Thanks for all that, Marla — right on!
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Dams never made a drop. They only fueled greater demand. The origin of supply or its limitations never entered their heads.
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couldn’t be truer said…
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Thanks, Pearl!
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