The Undertow by Sasha Steensen

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A mountain of snow and Ice almost reaching the crest of the American Falls at Niagara Falls
Undated photo by Gisela Scholz.
Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

I am shown
a generosity

so muddied
at the muddy bottom

of a question I forget to ask
until it’s fished out

but bloated but
in the manner of a net

a web of causal connections
attached to its corners

gently moving over
the surface of the water

how come the road
couldn’t have stayed followed

by way of hollowed out
logs & paddles

made of pawpaw wood
rather than by the crows

alone to the moment
when the Monongahela

the Allegheny
the Ohio meet

I hate the underside
of an idea

but I like the underside
of grass that grows

underwater
and I’ve seen it from there

blossom
as if the water had suddenly

stopped
and then surged forth

from there
I can see a shoal

of tadpoles
drowning themselves

I hate the idea
of the Ohio

as a magic carpet
into the heart

of the continent
a great gift

of geography
a gleaming highway

carrying a tide
of settlement

and expansion but
I despise

the idea of the three rivers
as my family tree

their canals
tributaries & branches

meeting
& later the Mississippi

by its side
for miles

until along comes my
baby floating

in a basket down
the Colorado

I despise all such
undertows

and the fact that I’ve never
heard steamwhistles

or boatmen’s bugles
I’ve never traveled

aboard The Messenger
The Telegraph

The Gladiator
The Ohio Belle

or The Great Republic
nor have I put my foot

in the Ohio
anymore than you

and the Niagara
I abhor the Niagara

in winter the
difficult beauty

of its frozen falls
and all they’ve

come to represent.


Source: Steensen, Sasha, 2010, “The Undertow,” Academy of American Poet’s Daily Poetry Series,               http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21952

Also published in: Steensen, Sasha, 2014, House of Deer, Fence Books, 93.

View Sasha Steensen’s website

 

Niagara Beautiful by Samuel R. Cristelli

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The Ice Bridge at Niagara Falls, February 5, 2007
Photo by Andrew Porteus

Fine sprays, colored rainbows,
Rushing waters, winter snows.
Majestically she roars her might,
Niagara, a truly beautiful sight!

Hark! Let us lend an ear
To rumbling sounds that are so near
Recognize her music with pride,
To Niagara! a drink we’ll imbibe!

Breathlessly we watch on a cold winter’s night
When NIagara waters are frozen tight
Ice bridges are formed on waters now ice,
Figurines are molded, does that not suffice?

The stage is set and sounds are slight,
Niagara is silenced by winter’s might.
A command performance soon we’ll see,
As Niagara prepares to break herself free!

With a mighty roar, she blasts her authority
Her fury is unleashed, she’s in her glory
Ice bridges are broken and skirting away
Niagara beautiful has had her say!

The rumbling sounds are heard once more
As Niagara boasts her strength galore!
All is beautiful-so serene
Beautiful Niagara, really supreme!


Source: Samuel R. Cristelli (Dec 5,1921 – Jul 18,1997). The date this poem was written is unknown. Cristelli, a WWII veteran, worked as an electrician and he wrote this poem for the electrical shop newsletter.  When he retired he worked as a supervisor with The Regional Municipality of Niagara at the Pollution Control Plant. The poem was provided by the author’s daughter, Shelley.

Read about the 1912 tragedy on the ice bridge that took 3 lives when it unexpectedly broke up

cristelli

Niagara in Winter by Harvey Wendell

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Cave of the Winds in Winter, Niagara Falls
Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

A Frozen poem ! Spray in crystals,
With which rock, shrub, tree, façade bristles !
A dream of beauty quite apart
From aught of painter’s, sculptor’s art ;
Spray rising from the torrent’s plunge
Makes each huge rock a marble sponge ;
Drops trickling from their dizzy height
Form rows of giant stalactite ;
Ice-forms of beauty, grandeur, grace,
Wreathing with gems fair Nature’s face.

Ice mountain rears its shimmering crest,
Fondly by winds and spray caressed ;
Adown its slope the sun-rays prance,
On its white summit sunbeams dance
With many an ardent, melting glance ;
the rapt beholder’s fancy sees
Pure Parian marble grown on trees,
Chiseled and modeled by the breeze ;
And while the waters roar and shout
The rainbow flings its ribbon out,
Like the adornment of a bride,
Hanging far down the mountain’s side.

One painter only ne’er grows old
Through summer’s heat and winter’s cold ;
One sculptor ne’er his skill has lost,
Unrivaled, grand, immortal Frost !
No other artist, unannoyed,
Could see, each year, his work destroyed ;
No other, with such patient cheer,
Would reproduce it year by year.


Source: Harvey Wendell. “Niagara in Winter,” Leslie’s Weekly Illustrated, March 24, 1898

Niagara by Kathy Gilbert

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Deer in the Winter
Image courtesy of PxHere

The river carries me here
As a babe on its island’s shores I play
Palms and fingers squish soft sand, feet kick,
On my back, sun warmed laps of waves.

Currents change with the seasons
Moody green, then blue; milky, then grey
Factory polluted in a haphazard way.
In autumn steam rises after first frost

Buckhorn’s creek freezes over in white
Our skates’ steel cuts crust to granules of light
We hear the creak of the sheet unable
to bear our weight; it cracks, we lie on the ice

crawl to shore; imagine the classmate trapped
head under the lip of ice, face turned blue
frozen in his boots, red cap and jacket;
first of our generation to pay the price

like deer seeking to drink fresh water
stranded on ice floe; eyes wide in fear
headed for the Rapids, then the Falls.
Sooner or later the current carries us all.


Source: Kathy Gilbert, 2021

Award winning poet Kathy Gilbert grew up in Niagara Falls, NY, attending St John de La Salle, Prince of Peace, and 66th Street schools before moving to Grand Island.  She currently resides  in Northern California where she received an MFA in poetry from San Francisco State University. In 2020, she published a poetry collection, Aprils Three. Other poems have appeared in Transfer, Anomalous, Swampwriting, The Steel Toe Review, The Community of Writers, and,Vistas & Byways. She is currently working on a book about Niagara Falls.

Dedication of “The Miracle and Other Poems” by Virna Sheard

dedication
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.