A Seneca Clan Mother Reflects on the Recent Suicide at the American Fall by T. W. Kriner

Before the purblind European eye
had cast its greedy stare upon the stones
that cracked before the flood like brittle bones,
the Onguiaarhas chose this place to die.

Their name became Niagara to the Whites
—it’s all that’s left of them in their disgrace.
They bowed before a demon at this place
and sacrificed their daughters in his rites.

Instead of Hinon, thunder god, they prayed
to Tawiskaro, trickster of the north,
who charmed them with his voice and called them forth
to feed upon their souls—so it is said.

The Onguiaarhas warned us of the fall,
but men still answer to the demon’s call.

Source:  T. W. Kriner. 

T. W. Kriner is the author of Journeys to the Brink of Doom (1997), In the Mad Water (1999), Twelve Dozen Four-by-Fours (2025), and The Call of Tawiskaro (2025).  He lives in a Western New York swamp with his wife and two cats.

Kriner says:
Of course the “myth” behind the sonnet was entirely fabricated by me. I continued this story in my recent short story collection The Call of Tawiskaro & Other Tales of Woe and Whimsy. The idea is absurd. I admit that freely. But it was fun.   

I’ve recently posted a fair number of poems at  All Poetry .com, if you’d care to sample.