Interior View of Milk Cave, Also Known as Buttermilk Cave, on the Niagara River. New York Power Authority. Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
Here is the place of lores,
Of heroes that never return,
The site of sagas and Mysteries
Of tales before old Histories
Of council-fires that burn
Hid from the pound of the waters where the ‡‡‡‡Cataract trembles and pours.
Here in the dusky quiet,
Cadenced with birds and tides —
Here in the forest’s circling mood
The sense of truth-in-solitude —
It’s here that legend hides —
And stones and forests and cliffs shut out the ‡‡‡‡world’s tumultous riot.
Only the echoes remain
Like the thought-of-a-thought —
Only the whisper of falls
Like the talk, (in their council walls
Of pine,) together brought,
Discussing their people’s strange plight with ‡‡‡‡Stoic indifference to pain.
Day-hours are lived in the strife
Night-hours are spent in the Essence,
Wildly the waters shall lave,
Silences seal the great cave —
Its fate is a lost evanescence,
(Oh, moment magnificent with thought of primitive life).
Source: Evelyn M. Watson. Poems of the Niagara Frontier. New York: Dean & Company, 1929.
Cemetery at Fort Niagara, in the midst of a gravestone cleaning project. Image courtesy of New York State Parks
A few rods from the barrier-gate of Fort Niagara was the burying-ground. It was filled with memorials of the mutability and brevity of human life, and over the portals of entrance was painted, in large and emphatic characters, the word ‘Rest’ — Judge De Veaux.
Earth, upon her ample face,
Boasts no sweeter burial-place
Than a small enclosure green,
Near an ancient fortress seen ;
Mossy head-stones here and there
Names of fallen warriors bear,
But no eulogistic phrase,
Cut on rock, that meets the gaze,
Can our reverence command,
Like that brief inscription grand,
On the portal arch impressed — ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡“Rest!”
River wide, and mighty lake
For the dead an anthem wake,
And with old, forgotten graves
Well comports the wash of waves,
Motto of the hallowed ground
Murmuring with solemn sound ;
Birds that by like spirits pass,
Winds that murmur in the grass,
Seem repeating evermore
That one word the gateway o’er,
Word that haunts a troubled breast— ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡“Rest!”
Pilgrim, for a moment wait
Near the narrow entrance gate,
And one word peruse — no more —
Boldly traced the portals o’er ;
Mortal heart was never stirred
By a more emphatic word ;
One with deeper meaning fraught,
Or the power to quicken thought ;
Sermon, hymn, and funeral lay,
Eloquence the soul to sway,
In four letters are compressed — ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡“Rest!”
Source: Hosmer, William H.C. The Poetical Works of William H.C. Hosmer. New York: Redfield, 1854
Frozen Niagara River with the American Falls in the background just before the fatal disaster of February 4, 1912. Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
TO MY DEAR BROTHER
ELDRIDGE STANTON (JUNIOR)
WHO DIED BRAVELY AT NIAGARA, ON THE AFTERNOON OF
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 4TH, 1912
No tears for thee, no tears, or sighs,
Or breaking heart —
But smiles, that thou so well that bitter hour
Didst play thy part !
Source: Virna Sheard. The Miracle and Other Poems. Toronto: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1913
A dedication to Eldridge Stanton, Junior, who died alongside his wife, Clara, and Burrell Hecock when the ice bridge across the Niagara River just below Niagara Falls broke up suddenly, leaving them adrift. Read Brian Busby’s account of the tragedy and the dedication in Virna Sheard’s book in his posting “A Dedication Born of Tragedy” in The Dusty Bookcase blog, November 7, 2019.
Sam Patch Jumped to Fame and Death. Boston Sunday Globe, August 12, 1928
The trick was breathing in, you claimed, as if that was all they gathered to watch as you milked the crowd in your matador sash, rum-slurring some speech no one could hear above the river’s thunder, quipping your catchphrase long worn threadbare: Some things can be done as well as others. But most things don’t sputter back even once, like that waterlogged schooner two autumns before, lunging over Niagara as billed, loaded with its Strange Cargo— bison, two bears, a bonneted fox, raccoons, a wing-clipped eagle— & disappearing into a wilderness of froth. Sam Patch, you dropped arrow-straight, untethered from earth, for cash, for booze, a lay, & yet here I am plundering your life for some path towards saying in our water’s blind wrath, in the body from that roaring slosh only a few times given back, despite nearly everything we choose, somehow we are blessed. I might as well beg for an ass-kick, I know. Scotch-soaked, fame-starved, cocksure, you are long-dead, unbreakable until the river broke you too & could stomach none of this. If it helps, forget the poem. Forget I said anything before I turned to you—since today inexplicably you’re all that will do—tottering sun-struck on the platform, preparing to plummet into that luminous rage & whatever that might afford.
Fallsview Boulevard in centre of photo, running from top to bottom. This is at the bottom of the hill. Imax Theatre on right, Best Western large rectangular building on left. Niagara Falls is to the right of this photo. August 22, 2005. Photo by Alina Rashid. Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
My grandmother at forty woke up before dawn
to dress, put on make-up, and curl her hair.
She was divorced, a mother of five, and a waitress
at the Best Western hotel in Niagara Falls.
The job started at eight o’clock but, always,
she left her apartment on Main Street early. Turned
the key in the lock. The click in the lock
told her she had the freedom to claim the open,
silent walk. She was a waitress at the Best
Western hotel in Niagara Falls. The boss was waiting
at the job, but the shift started at eight o’clock,
and just after dawn my grandmother still found worlds
of time. Worlds enough to breathe the air and know
she was alive. In 1980, in Niagara Falls,
the air smelled of water and smoke and big car
engines. Morning leavings of tourist bacchanals
performed all night before. But she didn’t care
for any of that. She was a waitress at the Best
Western hotel, and when she walked down
the Fallsview Boulevard hill she knew—she was alive.
These days my grandmother’s legs are frail
as the stilts of dying birds, but four decades back
they were still strong enough to work all day—
work and wake again before the dawn, wake
to descend the last stretch of hill. Watch
the rising sun turn Niagara’s jagged trench
and torrent liquid gold. Now at eighty years,
my grandmother trains my gaze with misty eyes
and lifts a brittle claw. When I was forty,
she confides, I was a waitress at the Best Western
hotel. Every morning before work, I’d walk down
to Niagara Falls. Watched the water. Knew
I was alive. A smile snakes across her skull. You know,
I thought I was so old. My God, she whispers,
I’d give anything now to be forty. Walk
down the hill to the water. Alive.
Source: FJ Doucet, 2021
FJ Doucet’s work has been published in grey borders magazine, The Banister, Hamilton Arts and Letters, Red Bird Chapbook website, Ascent Aspirations, and The Lyric. She is the newest president of the Brooklin Poetry Society. Doucet was born and mostly raised in Niagara Falls, Ontario, and though she has since lived on three continents, Niagara continues to haunt her.
