Engineers

A rising tide raises all boats
In nature's riverland
But here admidst dams,
Diverting basins and
Mounded miles
The mighty dikes
Raised against the whimsies
Of Blind God Wealth
The rising tides shall
Benefit those that
Design
Deems due best.
Locked within walls
Of mounding logic
The invisible hand strains
Pushes and prods
Closes into a fist.
The river would go
Whence the river wist
And logic and design
Only enrages the beast.
Put your faith in walls
And constraints against fate
And the hundred year flood
Will wash away all
Little and great.
And this prideful port
Astride great waters
And the complicit capital
Far from the scene
Shall both shattering shift
Before roaring furies
Of nature unleashed.
And New Orleans dry
And Baton Rouge drown
By the hubris of wisdom
And the pretension of power.

3/21/04