The chant of rocks is the falls (after Emily Lee Luan) by Margaret Simon

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Wildflowers at Niagara Falls, Oct. 2023
Photo by Margaret Simon

is the rush of gravity
is the impulse of water*
is the pull of a mother… child
is the everlasting light of the sun
is the building of power
is the electricity of ages
is the reflection of rainbows
is the promise of peace
is the waking of a dream
is the shift of river
to fall.


From Margaret Simon:

For Fall break, my husband and I visited Niagara Falls. This trip was a bucket list item for me. The Falls did not disappoint. They are an amazing feat of nature, the kind that cannot be captured in a photo or video. You have to be there to hear the sounds of hundreds of thousands of gallons of water falling each second. I took a lot of pictures, but when I look at them now, they pale in comparison to the real live event. I’m so happy we did this trip. I highly recommend it. If you are planning to go, let me know. I have suggestions.

This morning’s (October 18, 2023) Poem-a-Day from the Academy of American Poets was by Emily Lee Luan The warble of melting snow is the river. I borrowed her form for my own poem. I find that using a form helps me get out of my head and allowing creativity to do its magic.


Margaret Simon is a Mississippi native who married into a Louisiana life.  She lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana with her husband, Jeff.  Their now empty nest once housed three daughters, Maggie, Katherine, and Martha.  Margaret has been an elementary school teacher for 31 years, most recently teaching gifted students in Iberia Parish.  She has published poems in the journal The Aurorean, anthologies for Today’s Little Ditty, in Poetry Friday Power Book Here We Go, and in National Geographic’s the Poetry of US.  Border Press published her collection of poems with her father’s Christmas card art, Illuminate in fall of 2013.  Blessen, a novel for young readers, was published in April 2012, also by Border Press.  In 2018, UL Press published her first book of children’s poetry, Bayou Song: Creative Explorations of the South Louisiana Landscape.  In her teaching profession, she has a Masters degree in Gifted Education and certification by the National Boards for Professional Teaching Standards.  Margaret writes a blog regularly at http://reflectionsontheteche.com.

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