New Deal

Daily Note

Every day, a photograph, a poem. Looking up river on our walk to the Grand Coulee Dam, a dream envisioned, but only realized through government implementation from the New Deal that put millions of Americans back to work and helped rebuild America, much like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework— a dream to rebuild America’s aged infrastructure.

Water first spilled over the dam on June 1st, 1942— eighty-one years ago to provide work for people, water for land, power to homes, and to prevent flooding downstream. It was a dream by those needing a solution to hard times and inhospitable weather in the Pacific Northwest. But it took the US government to make it happen, as is usually the case for large societal issues.

Grand Coulee Dam is massive and was instrumental in the success of WWII by providing the needed electricity to build planes and ships.

Today, it still provides those basic needs and supports food production, keeps our electricity flowing in many states, and prevents flooding downstream. It’s an example of people dreaming, activists keeping the dream alive, and people working together as citizens and with the government to make the dream real. See what we can do when we dream big and work together? That’s the real America.

Poetry

New Deal

A promise realized:
water to dry land
power to homes
reservoir to stop floods—
work for people
after hard times—
a grand scheme
dreamed up by farmers,
business owners, citizens;
a grand public works
built by the New Deal;
first spilled
eighty-one years ago
and still
waters land
powers homes
stops floods:
the promise realized.

Sheri Edwards
06.26.23 178.365.23
Poetry/Photography [See-Frame-Focus]

Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River: view from the north and Lake Rufus Woods

#clmooc #smallpoems #grandcouleedam #newdeal

Note: a problem with the building of this dam is that the salmon no longer run past the dam, a loss of livelihood for Native Americans of the area. A Perspective.