Anchored to the Infinite by Edwin Markham

anchored
Kite Flying Contest Held To Get The First Line Across The Gorge For The Suspension Bridge.
by Donna Marie Campbell. Image courtesy of the Niagara Falls Public Library

The builder who first bridged Niagara’s gorge,
Before he swung his cable, shore to shore,
Sent out across the gulf his venturing kite
Bearing a slender cord for unseen hands
To grasp upon the further cliff and draw
A greater cord, and then a greater yet;
Till at the last across the chasm swung
The cable — then the mighty bridge in air!

So we may send our little timid thought
Across the void, out to God’s reaching hands —
Send out our love and faith to thread the deep—
Thought after thought until the little cord
Has greatened to a chain no chance can break,
And we are anchored to the Infinite!

Source:  Markham, Edwin, The Shoes of Happiness, and Other Poems; the Third Book of Verse. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, Page & Co., 1915.

The Niagara Suspension Bridge was the first bridge to span the Niagara River, and was in service from 1848-1855. To get the initial cable across, a kite flying contest, pictured above, was held. Contestants used the prevailing westerly winds to fly the kites from the Canadian to the American site. 13 year old Homan Walsh won the contest. Progressively larger strings and cables were tied to the kite string and pulled across until cables could be anchored to either side and bridge construction could begin.

Sunday Afternoon in Niagara Falls by Marilyn K. Moody

moody
It’s a grey february day, and we’re
just hanging out in old Niagara Falls,

in a bar next to the river, you know, you
can look out the smoke-smeared window,

and see the river across River Road, but
everyone there has seen that water all their

life, they don’t give a shit about the river or
the falls; maybe you might get a grunt or

something if you talked about Love Canal,
mainly cause everyone knows somebody

whose property values got ruined, and my
friend still points out that gash on the earth

every time we drive here to this sleazy but
not a biker bar here in her home town,

but the real purpose of coming here is
perfectly clear to us and everyone else.

We shoot pool.

The regulars at this bar know

their real purpose too, and they get to their
drinking and don’t even move, so we don’t ever

have to fight to put quarters in the table’s slot,
but we stack up the quarters for at least 10

games anyways, and then we chalk the cues
and then we rack the balls, and then WHOOSH

we break the balls, and you ain’t seen nothing
until you’ve seen the four of us playing pool

in a niagara falls bar in the middle of winter
with the whole bar wishing they were us,

and any guy who challenges our best
wishes he’d left the old bitches alone,

and we’re the main entertainment, we’re
the whole sunday afternoon show,

and we don’t ever let anybody down.

©1997 by Marilyn Moody

This Moment by Patrick T. Reardon

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Patrick T. Reardon at Niagara Falls

In lowering dark,
we drive the empty Canada streets,
Cathy and the kids and I,
looking for Niagara Falls.

We breathe in and out
together
as we round the next turn.

Source: Silver Birch Press, My Perfect Vacation Series, July 25, 2015. Click here to view the poem by Reardon on the Silver Birch Press website

Click here to visit Reardon’s website

AUTHOR’S NOTE ON THE PHOTOGRAPH: In the background, that’s Niagara Falls which Cathy, the kids and I did find. This was in July 2000, and it was at a lookout, I’m pretty sure, on the Canadian side.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I had a hard time thinking about a “perfect” vacation. Perhaps I’m too Catholic; nothing ever seems perfect. This image/memory rose up amid my confusion. It was, maybe, a perfect moment.

patricktreardon

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Patrick T. Reardon was 11 years old when he had his first essay published in a neighborhood paper in Chicago, and, over the next half century or so, he has been writing news articles, feature stories, essays, book reviews and poems, often for money. He has published five books and is midway through the writing of a sixth.

Untitled by Le Sievr de la Franchise. Tr. by Jonathan Kaplansky

kaplansky
Portrait of Jonathan Kaplansky, translator of this poem

Muses, if praises you sing, I recommend that you
Extol Champlain for his courage:
Not fearing danger, he has seen so many places
His reports are pleasing to our ears.
He has seen Peru, Mexico and the wonder
Of the infernal Vulcan that spews so much fire;
And the falls of Mocosa, that offend the eye
Of those who dare to see their unequalled cascade.
He promises us to venture further still,
Convert the heathens and find the Levant.
Heading North or South to go to China.
Charitably ‘tis all for the love of God.
Bah! Cowards who never move from one place to another!
Their lives, honestly, strike me as narrow.

Translated January 2021 by Jonathan Kaplansky

Click here to see the poem in its original French language form.

Source of original poem: Dow, Charles Mason. Anthology and Bibliography of Niagara Falls ,  Albany: State of New York, 1921

Originally published: Champlain, Samuel de.  Des sauvages ou Voyage de Samuel Champlain De Brouage, fait en la France Nouvelle l’an mil six cens trois, 1604

From Dow: “It is an interesting fact that the first book printed in Europe which contains a reference to Niagara Falls, should also contain this sonnet in which allusion is made to the Falls. The sonnet follows the dedication. The old spelling of the original is followed in the quotation. Research has not revealed any information regarding the author.”  vol, 2, p693

From the 1899 book Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier by Frank Hayward Severance (p. 276-277): “The poetry of Niagara Falls is contemporary with the first knowledge of the cataract among civilized men. One may make this statement with positiveness, inasmuch as the first book printed in Europe which mentions Niagara Falls contains a poem in which allusion is made to that wonder … It seems proper, in quoting this first of all Niagara poems, to follow as closely as may be in modern type the archaic spelling of the original … I regret that some further research has failed to discover any further information regarding the poet De La Franchise. Obviously, he took rather more than the permissible measure of poet’s licence in saying that Champlain had seen Peru, a country far beyond the known range of Champlain’s travels. But in the phrase “les saults Mocosans,” the falls of Mocosa, we have the ancient name of the undefined territory afterwards labeled “Virginia.” The intent of the allusion is made plainer by Marc Lescarbot, who in 1610 wrote a poem in which he speaks of “great falls which the Indians say they encounter in ascending the St. Lawrence as far as the neighbourhood of Virginia.” The allusion can only be to Niagara.”

Jonathan Kaplansky works as a literary translator of French in Montreal. He won a
French Voices Award to translate Annie Ernaux’s Things Seen (La vie extérieure), and
recently translated a book by Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec: The Cry of Vertières: Liberation,
Memory, and the Beginning of Haiti.
https://www.attlc-ltac.org/en/translator/jonathan-kaplansky-en/

Untitled by R.A. Wade

flood
Niagara Falls from below. This poem was inspired by a trip behind the falls starting near this spot. Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

The tenfold thunders awful crash,
The sea of foam at your feet,
The play of the quivering sunbeam
On Niagara’s ample sheet.
Impress the soul with religious awe
As you gaze at the crystal flood ;
And as you drink their glories in,
You give the praise to God.

Source: R.A. Wade. A Poem on Niagara Falls.  Louisville, Ky.: Sherrill, Turner & Co., 1874

View the book by Wade on the Hathi Trust site. It includes an essay by Wade entitled My Visit to the Falls starting on p. 19; this poem is included in the essay, in a section about going behind the flood of the Falls to Termination Rock.

Wade was from Paris, Tennessee