The poem is written on the Famous Niagara Falls when I visited it last.
Ram M. Mehta
Niagara, the Antiope of Canada,
Amazonian, but not breastless,
Snowy bosom like virginal gems,
Swelling lips moderately full,
Savory odor felt all around,
Crystalline throat striking the eyes.
Meandering, churning, darting, dashing,
Transformed from blonde to brunette,
Here, alluring, benign, attenuated,
There corpulent, colossal, capering,
Practising calisthenics all the time.
Raquel Welch in “One Million Years B.C.,”
Wily Cleopatra, the scythian of Ordzhonikidze
Carnal Marilyn, matured Helen of Troy.
Venus in Aries, Mars in Pisces.
Broadbellied, middleaged, deep,
Now bulging belle of Detroit,
Encircling the wooing Windsor,
Yet the Blithe spirit of Pelee Island.
Last spring I was commissioned by the Burlington Art Centre to write a series of poems for their involvement in the province wide – The Water Project. One of the artists (Donna Ibing ) created an installation called Niagara II – a large ink and woodcut replication of the American Falls. Very powerful indeed – the ‘Falls’ took up a huge portion of the wall space given to the exhibition!
The poem was also inspired by a dream I had about Niagara Falls and the poet/short story writer Raymond Carver. Here is an excerpt from my notes on the project:
The night before my first meeting with the curator of the Burlington Art Centre – George Wale, I dreamt I traveled to Niagara Falls to visit an Open House. A house (apparently) owned by the American poet and short story writer, Raymond Carver. In the dream I take off my shoes and walk in. Other visitors are milling about. It is quite dark inside. I am drawn to the back of the house. It is lighter there and I hear an ever-thundering whoosh! When I reach the end of the house there is no wall. It is completely open. A small backyard and beyond that, the American Falls: stand water awed in Ray’s backyard. No fences. No barriers. The view is breathtaking. I wake up.
A few hours later I am sitting in George’s office. While explaining The Water Project, he proceeds to rummage through his papers to show me some of the artists’ work. The first image he shares with me is Ibing’s Niagara II. I am speechless. There on paper is my dream. Whoosh!
A New Path to the Waterfall was Raymond Carver’s last book. A book of poetry written during the last year of his life, he died of cancer in 1988.
Gift inscription by Cara Elizabeth Whiton-Stone
What wild convulsion in the ages past
Shook thee to such immeasurable unrest,
Oh, mad Niagara? Did the huge crest
Of some black mountain, splintered by a blast
From Heaven down-bolted, leave these fissures vast
Whence rush thy waters? Or was ocean pressed
From its storm-beaten shores, to dash thy breast
And hurl out rage from thee, while Time shall last?
Rage on, imperial mystery, that thou art;
Chance, in the azoic age, with wonders rife,
At mandate of the gods, from out earth’s heart,
In embryo doomed to everlasting strife,
Thou sprang’st defiant, thundering to thy part,
Magnificent and terrible, as Life.
Rage on, for giant raging thou may’st show,
Through veins that interlace the land, thy power,
And with thy foaming passion, bring to flower
The genius of man; may’st writhing go
Like a colossal serpent, to and fro,
Winding through ribs of steel that massive tower,
And so imprisoned, strike the zenith hour
When science shall supremest secret know:
I liken thee to soul wherein is pent
Divinest madness, that song surging keeps,
Till by unconquerable forces rent,
To mighty music it majestic sweeps.
As the great Odyssey blind Homer sent
Crashing sublimely down eternal steeps.
Source: Myron T. Pritchard, comp. Poetry of Niagara. Boston: Lothrop Publishing Co., 1901.
