Buzzed on red wine
I watched
Niagara fall over your shoulder.
Premature showdown
In Honeymoon Town.
The first time we took our clothes off
It was to Monty Python,
Not Simply Red
Not Marvin Gaye.
“How to protect yourself
From an assailant
Carrying fresh fruit”…
For months I couldn’t bring myself
To tell you this,
When we made love that night
I heard Eric Idle ask,
“What if I’m assaulted by a
Man carrying a pointed stick?”
Clara Jessup Moore
River of banks and woods and waters green,
With all of beauty to attract the eye,
Why leaps my heart, as past thy shores we fly?
Art thou not quiet as an infant’s dream,
Pure as its thoughts, unruffled as its brow
When circled by its mother’s arms in sleep,
While o’er it she doth still her vigils keep?
Then wherefore leaps my heart so wildly now?
Hark to that roar, deep as the thunder’s tone,
And in the distance see the sun’s last ray
Falling on clouds of never-ceasing spray.
In its wild beatings is my heart alone?
Thou glidest on to meet that battling flood,
Fearless as warrior to the field of blood!
Within a temple‘s towering walls I stand ̶
A temple vast; the heaven is its dome.
No corniced crag was hewn by human hand
Nor by it wrought the tracery of foam;
The inlaid floor of emerald and pearl
Heaves at the hidden organ‘s thunderous peal,
While round and up the clouds of incense curl,
Shrouding the chancel where the billows kneel.
Ah! bow your heads. It is a fitting place
For solemn thought, for deep and earnest prayer;
For here the finger of our God I trace,
Beneath, above, around me, everywhere;
He hollowed out this grand and mighty nave,
And robed his altar with the ocean wave!
I longed for Andes all around, and Alps,
Hoar kings and priests of Nature robed in snow,
Throned as for judgement in a solemn row,
With icy mitres on their giant scalps,
Dumb giants frowning at the strife below.
I longed for the sublime. Thou art too fair,
Too fair, Niagara, to be sublime!
In calm, slow strength thy mighty floods do flow
And stand a cliff of cataracts in the air,
Yet all too beauteous Water, bride of Time!
Veiled in soft mists and cinctured by the bow,
Thy pastoral charms may fascinate the sight,
But have not power to set my soul aglow,
Raptured by fear and wonder and delight.
Source: Kevin McCabe, ed. The Poetry of Old Niagara. St. Catharines, Ont. : Blarney Stone Books, 1999.
Published in Martin Farquhar Tupper. Three Hundred Sonnets. London: Arthur Hall, Virtue, and Co., 1860.
Also published: G. W. Holley, ed. Niagara: Its History and Geology, Incidents and Poetry. New York, 1872.
Also published in Johnson, Richard L. (ed). Niagara: Its History, Incidents and Poetry. Washington: Walter Neale General Book Publisher, 1898.
the falls spill over grey walls of rock,
a repeated hallucination. marble green water
unfurls white crinolines of foam that
cascade over the edge like five thousand
angels in anklets of lace.
churning in the river’s jaw
like loosened teeth, chunks of ice
jostle each other near the lip
of boiling water, then grind
and shatter far below.
once a man crossed this on a tightrope —
others rolled over in barrels. some
survived, some dreamed over and over
white water caught in the grapes of their lungs.
last year a woman dropped her child
over the black rail. was slow
to scream for help. exposure
takes too long, she said.
all night the child’s fingers
climbed the bedroom walls
like the knuckles of spiders.
the mother bathed in moonwater,
wanted to live in the mouth of a rose.
the child was an octopus, hungry
for love or milk. she provided milk.
love was a luxury.
we walk between twisted trees,
make starts of conversation.
wind whips sheets of snow
over dead grass; pares our faces
thin as paper.
we lean over the rails, stare down
until the water shifts, begins to fall
up. spray beads our hands, we reel
like drunken boats. we’re not yet sure
why we’re here. a sign nearby says
keep back. it doesn’t say
don’t jump.
