“Outside the Floodwalls” from TINTED DISTANCES

As I watched news this past week of the flood waters rising and cresting in North Dakota, engulfing the city of Minot, as well as endangering a nuclear reactor in Nebraska near the swollen Missouri River, I felt great sympathy for the people in that region, especially the many who have lost their homes, and I thought of a visit to Huntington, West Virginia years ago during which I traveled along the floodwalls there, guided by a friend and resident of the city.

After once again being devastated by a great flood in 1937 that left 6,000 citizens of Huntington homeless, the city was included in a Flood Control Act passed by Congess, authorizing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to immediately construct floodwalls about 15 miles long and as high as 20 feet to protect the area from the Ohio River, which they have done to this day. In 1937, the river crested at 69 feet, which would have been just three feet short of the top of the current wall. Indeed, at least a dozen times since the building of the walls, the city has been saved from subsequent destructive flood levels.

“Outside the Floodwalls,” the following poem of mine inspired by that visit to Huntington, is included in my new collection of poems, Tinted Distances, recently released by Turning Point Books:

OUTSIDE THE FLOODWALLS

. . . . . For DeLane Ball


. . . . . I

This morning when the sun began to show itself
. . . . . above those uppermost ridges that scratch against

the smooth blue skies like black saw blades,
. . . . . we drove down from your home hidden among

the higher, densely wooded hills. Descending
. . . . . steep and winding roads, we arrived just as a fast

peel of dawn finished. Already, the early bustle
. . . . . of this city’s small business section had begun

as, at last, we passed through the thick brown dust
. . . . . of downtown construction towards floodwalls

reaching far and tall beside the river’s narrow edge.
. . . . . You have lived here forty years, nearly your whole

life, often traveled much of the river’s length looking
. . . . . to discover lost inlets with rare waterlogged wrecks

or rotted out hulls left forever in sludge and filled
. . . . . with bilge. In these beloved mysteries, you tell me,

you have found a way to measure life’s change,
. . . . . loss come as part of the cost of taming the waters.


. . . . . II

Today, you’ve taken me for a tour of those remote
. . . . . ruins you’re sure will never lose their significance,

have shown me boats that, like the stored memories
. . . . . of old men, you say may have grown faulty

with age, but continue to give a glimpse into lives,
. . . . . times we will never witness. And now afternoon

is ending, this stretch is littered with large barges
. . . . . drifting down river, each searching its home port.

As those old cargo boats slip slowly past a last grasp
. . . . . of evening light, overloaded holds gracelessly

bear their burdens once more. Massive bulks
. . . . . dragged steadily downstream by the slightest pull

of a late summer current, they eventually disappear
. . . . . in a flat distance brought on by faint haze of dusk,

and all along these marred banks lining the Ohio,
. . . . . darker stains of high-water lines, which yet mark

these great gray walls like still visible scars, again
. . . . . are starting to recede into nightfall’s first shadows.

. . . . . —Edward Byrne

Tinted Distances is available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. In addition, I am currently offering a sale of signed and numbered copies of the volume. Please view sidebar for ordering signed copies. Readers may also find more information about Tinted Distances and details on purchasing the autographed discount copies at my personal web site, which presents a further selection of poems from this new collection and other past books for readers to browse as well.