The Johnstown Flood

Where do we lay the souls of twenty-two hundred nine buried in the mud and silt who died in May so long ago when Johnstown could not stem the flow
of broken dam above them, built for sport
of men and women of great wealth?
God sent the rain, but someone made the tragic call to once again ignore the pleas by telegraph to get the people out. They'd heard it all before, and like the boy whose call of wolf brought
out the worst, this was the one time when the dam
would truly burst and pour the Little Conemaugh
upon the unwarned citizens below. And those who
had to have the South Fork dam so modified for
fancy hunting club to host elites, the bankers,
politicians, manufacturers of steel whose power
wielded in the courts would thwart attempts to
get survivors monetary help. Greed, then, was
the reason. Or inattention to the signs. Great disaster
caused by men without its equal for another hundred
and twelve years, when airplanes flew into New York's
Twin Towers. Greed had a factor there, as well, and
inattention to the signs of growing animosity. It
rained on that day, too, debris and paper falling
from collapse of yet another mighty edifice that took the
lives of twenty-six hundred six.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013