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Monday, April 14, 2014

POST #14- ITAIPU FALLS

Itaipu, from Wikimedia Commons
ITAIPU- A POEM IN TWO VOICES

Paraná River,
world’s seventh largest
natural border between
Brazil and Paraguay

is it possible
to harness
this immense power




Guaíra Falls
twice Niagara’s height
twice Niagara’s flow

submerged forever

“Here seven visions,
seven liquid
 sculptures
vanished
 through computerized calculations
of a country
ceasing to be human
in order to become
a chilly corporation,
nothing more. “
-Carlos Drummond de Andrade,
"Farewell to Seven Falls"

Unprecedented cooperation
between Brazilian and Paraguayan
governments.
Argentina too!
Look!
Look what we can do
if we work together!



Our people
are farmers.
Ten thousand
will lose their land.
Their homes.
Their livelihoods.

Ninety percent of Paraguay’s power!
One fourth of Brazil’s!

We could be
burning
434,000 barrels
of oil
per day!



Rare fruit trees,
orchids
animals species
Gone.

Breeding and
migration patterns
forever changed

Itaipu! 
One of  the seven wonders 
of the modern world!

(C) Carol Wilcox, 2014












2 comments:

Nanc said...

The contrast in these two voices are amazing. I love the research that you needed to do. This is something awesome we should do in our classrooms...how CCSS :)

Mary Lee said...

You captured the tension between the positives and negatives.

I'm struggling with the destruction that comes from these amazing feats of construction.

And in response, my poem for tomorrow will have exactly NOTHING to do with the Panama Canal.