After the Dams
by Janna Knittel
published in Cold Mountain Review in the Fall 2015 issue

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A Warm Springs poet who writes about Celilo
says all dams fall, eventually:

water erodes concrete;
fractures expand under pressure.

I prefer the sound of dynamite
to waiting.

After the Powerdale exploded,
the deconstruction manager said size doesn’t matter:

“If there’s a blueprint for it, we can blow it up.”
The Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams’ demise

proved it with a bang.
The Elwha K’lallam people

weren’t federally recognized until ’68,
but fought to unleash a river

once celebrated only
for the power to be harnessed.

They harnessed their power. Salmon
swim the Elwha again.

Oncorhynchus hold the center
but silt and mud the river layers

at the shore welcome essential estuary
species, however small,

ugly, humble: Dungeness crab, sand
lance, surf smelt, clams.