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)

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Poem: When the Three Gorges Dam Collapses

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