Poetry of and about Niagara Falls & the Niagara River – the waterfalls, the city, the history, the stunters, and everything else Niagara
Author: Andrew Porteus
Andrew Porteus is a retired librarian who started the Niagara Falls Poetry Project in 1998 in order to gather in one place the hundreds of poems that exist about Niagara Falls. Andrew returned to Brock University to get a Master of Art degree based on the website
Portly Bard. Old man. Ekphrastic fan. Prefers to craft with sole intent… of verse becoming complement… …and by such homage being lent… ideally also compliment.
Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise for words but from returning gaze far more aware of fortune art becomes to eyes that fathom heart.
Let’s go back to a time forgotten—
Time when all stood still at this reckoning
When the stars spewed light like a string of shiny pearls
Gleaming, coyly placed, half-hidden in a breast
To enkindle the earth with heavenly illumination
And begin Niagara’s immaculate creation
Falling, tumbling river dodging over rock formations
Over and over: an international maritime border
Canada’s pride
America’s daughter
Danger lies in beauty wild and unforgiving
Many years Niagara made a sparkling temptation
When Honeymooners and brazen lads took the chance
To walk upon the icy bridge made of water
It seemed a game, not risking life in great parlance
The tall, strapping boys built a warm beverage station
Canadian citizens welcomed
Americans as close relations
The menacing sun appeared as a propitious omen,
Settling over that imagined, glassy isthmus
Until a fatal crack shuddered out a warning:
Jagged flaws in the ice were quickly forming
Honeymooners from New York were taking in the sights
The young Quebecians downing cups of hot chocolate
All looked to one another, faces full of fright
Far too late to make preparations
Crossing an international border without immigration
Was a delightful idea with just the right amount of mystery
Until the couple, sharing one last kiss
Before rushing waters pulled them apart, taking their breath
Were noted in the annals of Niagara’s history
By boys turned into men by cheating death.
Debbie Walker-Lass is a collage artist, poet, and writer living in Decatur, Georgia. Her work has appeared in journals and magazines including Punk Monk, Haiku Poetry, The Light Ekphrastic, The Ekphrastic Journal, Three-Line Poetry, and Natural Awakenings, Atlanta, among others. She was recently nominated to appear in “The Best Short Fiction, 2024” anthology by the editor of The Ekphrastic Journal, Lorette Luzajic.
After Thanksgiving dinner in North Tonawanda
We drove to Niagara through chilly evening fog,
parked and walked carefully toward the falls.
The sidewalks and grounds were frosted lace,
along the path branches of flash frozen trees
had spent blossoms suspended like icicle earrings.
Although we remembered 4th grade science
and the hydraulic water cycle
we forgot to realize that when they melt
the radiant ice diamonds
will mingle with human breath
mist their way to heaven
before returning to earth
in never ending rotation
to churn and crash over the falls
as they had for Frederic Edwin Church in 1857
when his breath and artistic vision
captured and contributed to the movement
of the eternal roar.
Daniel Brown has recently published at age 72 his first collection Family Portraits in Verse and Other Illustrated Poems through Epigraph Books, Rhinebeck, NY. He has most recently been published in Jerry Jazz Musician and Chronogram Magazine and was included in Arts Mid-Hudson 2023 gallery presentation Poets Respond To Art in Poughkeepsie, NY.
Brock’s Monument on Queenston Heights and Cenotaph Erected on Spot Where He Fell in Battle. Photo from 1908 Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.
The roll of the drum breaks the sleep of the morning, ….As it rocks back and forth in the dawning’s embrace,
And the bugle’s wild echoes sing widely the warning ….That the enemy’s hosts are approaching the place.
From their dreams spring the soldiers, alert for the greeting ….That foemen to foemen are eager to make,
And they grasp up their weapons in haste for the meeting ….Of bayonet with bayonet in thicket and brake.
Through field and through forest the columns advancing, ….Like foam-crested waves on a shore’s rocky head,
Come with flashing of bayonets and mettled steeds prancing, ….The ranks of the blue ‘gainst the ranks of the red.
Then suddenly rings out the musketry’s rattle, ….And thunders the tone of the cannon’s deep boom,
As fiercely they join in the tumult of battle, ….When many brave soldiers are sent to their doom.
Aloft on the breeze is the British flag flying, ….And round it the death-missives whistle and sing
A dirge for the soldiers, who proudly are dying— ….Are dying for freedom, for country and king.
There are veterans there who have fought the world over, ….Regardless of danger, disdainful of death,
And grimly they fall on the sere faded clover, ….And cheer for their king with their fast-failing breath.
There , too, in the carnage and tumult beside them ….Are those who came forth at young Canada’s call,
And though torment and danger and death may betide them, ….They will fight on to vict’ry, or fight till they fall.
They had answered the bugle’s sharp summons of warning, ….Those stout-hearted heroes, the York Pioneers,
And forth in the dusky gray dawn of the morning, ….Had marched to the conflict untrammelled by fears.
And now they are fighting for all they hold dearest, ….Their sweethearts and wives ,and the country they love :
As they think of the ones that their hearts hold the nearest, ….“Protect them !” they gasp to the Father above.
Oh , wilder and fiercer the conflict is growing, ….And sorely the ranks of the red are oppressed,
And fast is the flood of the crimson tide flowing, ….That is draining the lives of the bravest and best !
Can nothing be done to save from disaster ….The resolute men of that brave little band ?
Ah ! who is this coming up , faster and faster, ….Erect in the saddle, his sword in his hand ?
List, list to the cheer that rings high through the forest, ….And list to the tidings that run down the line :
“It is Brock who has come when our need is the sorest ! ….At the flash of his sword vict’ry ever will shine.”
With a shout on his lip he leaps into the battle, ….Unheedful of dangers, unconscious of fears,
And his voice rings aloud o’er the musketry’s rattle : ….“Push on to the front the brave York Volunteers !”
He pauses, he staggers, his life blood is flowing ! ….Pale, pale grow his features—he’s gasping for breath !
And seething with fury his soldiers are throwing ….Themselves on the foemen, avenging his death.
They chase the invaders, they hurl them before them, ….They sweep o’er the field with victorious tread,
Then they lower the flag that sadly droops o’er them, ….And wrap it with reverence over the dead.
Sad, sad are the souls of the men gathered round him— ….Not triumph but sorrow possesses each breast—
For bravest and noblest of men had they found him. ….He led them to glory, but now he’s at rest.
He’s at rest, but forever the fame of his story ….Will shine on our annals untainted by time,
And ever will glitter the star of his glory, ….Who fell at his post in his bright golden prime.
Source: Charles Edwin Jakeway. The Lion and the Lilies: A Tale of the Conquest and Other Poems. Toronto: William Briggs, 1897
The death notice of Charles Edwin Jakeway published in the Barrie Examiner March 8, 1906 from Find a Grave
