Karl Meyer Writing Blog

NOTE:The following bit of verse was presented at the North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival in public recognition of the annual fish kill that takes place on the Connecticut River in the Turners Falls Power Canal, literally in the back yard of the USGS Silvio O. Conte Anadromous Fish Research Center. The fish kill is a combination of federal trust and resident fish species, and is not monitored, nor has any organization stepped forward to litigate this “taking” of a public resource.
* CLICK; then CLICK again on photo to enlarge.

Copyright © 2017 by Karl Meyer, All Rights Reserved

TINY DECK CHAIRS ON THE TITANIC

Fun, prizes, social interaction, good citizenship

All to be had for two hours work picking trash

On the banks of a river

Pizza, parties, tee-shirts, free beer

A green-washed star for your corporate-dollars in sponsorship

The feel-good morning of your river-loving year

Facebook, newsprint, TV, a tally told in tons of trash

Yet all that week, muck-battered pan fish lay dead in the river’s wake

Right under everyone’s nose

The corporation had torpedoed the river yet again

Sunk it, in the mud of a hidden canal

Diverted, drained, de-oxygenated

To a desiccated hulk

Scores of pickerel begged for water, expired

Pumpkinseed pulsed their gills, but siphoned only mud

Thousands of sea lamprey twisted, belly-up, in hardening sand

Geese honked in nervous confusion

As frantic baby shad made a baitfish dash through puddles leading nowhere

Me and a great blue heron surveyed the scene

Puzzling over a river’s life that would never find the sea

Then, I abandoned the bird to that sink full of dirty dishes

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A tiny sampling of the thousands of struggling young fish and freshwater clams killed annually in the draining of the Turners Falls Power Canal. Sea lamprey, suckers, shad, bass, pickerel, pumpkinseed, etc. Photos taken on the morning of September 18, 2017, as the water was still draining. As the water draws down completely, the fish struggle and become sand covered, rendering them largely invisible in the muddy habitat.

NOTE: Click on images, then click again to ENLARGE.

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