Down the steep an ocean pours,
Loud the rushing water roars.
Oh, how shadowy were the way,
If no rainbow lit the spray!
Here a love-sick swain may find
Speedy cure for anguished mind.
Take one plunge, and every woe
Down the gulf will quickly go.
J. Austin was from Texas
Source: Table Rock Album and Sketches of the Falls and Scenery Adjacent. Buffalo: Steam Press of Thomas and Lathrops, copyright by Jewett, Thomas & Co.,1856c.1848
This link takes you to the scanned version of the 1855 version of Table Rock Album from the Hathi Trust
Next to the bliss of seeing Sarah,
Is that of seeing Niagara.
Source: Table Rock Album and Sketches of the Falls and Scenery Adjacent. Buffalo: Steam Press of Thomas and Lathrops, copyright by Jewett, Thomas & Co.,1856c.1848
This link takes you to the scanned version of the 1855 version of Table Rock Album from the Hathi Trust
Niagara Falls at Night. Photo by Tim Balzer, September, 2019
Listen
Hear it?
long low moan of August cicada
as lazy bee drifts amongst
purple spikes of lavender
watching summer ebb
like Fundy tides
Roar of falls drowns
this note of season passing
as they surge down cliffs
gurgling and crashing
onto rocks far below
telling stories of tumbling markets
failed military strategies
teetering autocrats, errant dictators
broken relationships
Each wavelet a moan for
something lost, gone wrong
mourning ’til that ripple hits
eddies at the base
Only at night under
beauteous coloured lights
do falls prattle of love families friendships
joys better even
than success riches and all money brings
Look for happy endings in stories told night
under multi-coloured lights
Look at nightfall for love
Source: The author, 2019
About Margaret Cole
Margaret Code is a Toronto-based poet writing since 1995. Her work has been published in Garm Lu (Shanty Table), Lichen, Best American Poets, Who’s Who in American Poetry, Vol. 4 (2013) (Something You Never Learned), Labour of Love (Chemistry), This Time Around: Coastline (Be Longing), Big Pond Rumours (A Child’s Day at the Lake), Voices (Traditional Hippie Wedding), Art Bar Team Reading Anthology (Kiss of the Blue Danube, Scarlet Tote), The Poetrain Anthology (Brochure Boasts, Poetrain of the Canadian) Memory and Loss (I Never Saw It Coming) and Chickadee (Itchy Scratchy Bumps). In 2013 she won an audience-voted Best Originals contest and in 2015 took second place in a Big Pond Rumours contest with her poem, A Child’s Day at the Lake. She has received three poet-voted Best Poem awards in the Hot Sauced Words Poetry Theme Challenge. Margaret attends a number of poetry events in Toronto, delighted in the journey on the PoeTrain from Winnipeg to Vancouver in the spring of 2015 and is active on the boards of the Art Bar Poetry Series and the Toronto Writers’ Coop.
When the bridegroom
Reaches the room
With breath bated
He approaches
The moment long awaited.
He takes off his loud cravat
And his shirt and his hat,
His trousers and his shoes,
And his undershirt and drawers.
Naked, as from his mother,
He attempts with another
To return to that sweet night of the womb.
Source: James Reaney. The Red Heart. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1949
