Round Valley Reservoir
Hunterdon County, New Jersey

1960. Garden State. Two dams and then a flood.
Fears the water would run out. “Go west or go without.”

Sixteen houses. Fifty farms, demolished, moved, or sold.
Legend says you still see them—housetops when water’s low.

Nine years water pumped. The pipes could fit a pickup truck.
School and church were covered up. A man-made reservoir.

Twenty-six have drowned down there since 1971.
World’s most cursed, the lake is called. Some folks were never found.

Forty days and forty nights, rain poured down on the earth.
Noah saw the bow and dove, knew peace had had to hurt.