Barren River Lake Dam, a Poem by Keith W. Norris

Faux hillside, covered in fescue grass,

ten thousand dump truck loads of rock and dirt,

dumped in and over the river

by the worker ants

to impede the timeless flow of the river.

A small tunnel under the mound,

an intubation tube to the throat,

slows the stream to a trickle,

houses, farmland and secrets

buried forever under the watery expanse.

Limestone boulders from the quarry

line the sloped bank of the spillway

like discarded tombstones

to stop the erosion

that the worker ants started.

The river recovers

and continues on it's way.

It can be slowed but not stopped.

The impounded water fills the valleys

covering ghost towns wiped off the map.

In the name of flood control

and recreation and dollar signs

they admire their work,

before, like a drive-by shooter,

taking their carnage elsewhere.

Like the Berlin Wall

the dam is a divide

between the east and the west,

Insurmountable, until it isn't.

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Keith W. Norris is an insurance claims professional by day and a poet by night. He is a graduate of Western Kentucky University and attended the Naslund-Mann School of Writing at Spalding University.  He is on the autism spectrum and has Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and his poetry often reflects traits of his neurodiversity. His work has been published in The Words Faire, Half & One, Juste Millieu Zine, and Still Here Magazine.  He lives in Moraine, Ohio, USA with his family.