Tag: tourists

Again to the Falls by Lynne Bronstein

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Mr. & Mrs. Harry Lewis At Table Rock Observation Platform, Horseshoe Falls In Background. Photographer unknown. Francis A. Petrie Collection. Courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

I visited Niagara Falls only once. I was sixteen
And with my family. The Customs Man
Came to know us after a few days.
But every time we crossed the bridge,
He asked us “Where were you born?”
Because he had to.
I spent much time on the Canadian side
Because it was exciting to be in another country.
I watched the trains that ran through the center of town.
Longest trains I’d ever seen, Canadian railroad.
I saw the bell tower where an unfaithful blonde
Was strangled by her husband in the movie Niagara.
But the Falls? The three waterfalls,
Demonstrating the full force of water at top speed—
All I did was look at them.
My parents had been under them.
It had once been the fashion
For honeymooners to travel
To the Falls. For the maximum
In daring romance, they’d don clumsy raincoats
And clunky boots
And ride the boat Maid of the Mist
As it passed beneath the muscular shower,
Getting each marriage off
To a drenching start.
As if to say: “We are not wed
Until we’ve been soaked
And cleansed
In the spray of the Falls.”

I wonder if this magic might work in reverse.
If I were to go to Niagara now
And stand beneath the Falls
And let the water change me,
Make me ready
To receive
Love that streams
Like non-stop water.
It is not a question of where I was born
But rather a question of where I will revive.
Under the rainbow arc of water
Where love and courage have been tested
And children are conceived.
No age is too late for a honeymoon.
To stand beneath the Falls
Is an item on my list.

Lynne Bronstein is a poet, a journalist, a fiction writer, a songwriter, and a playwright. She has been published in magazines ranging from Chiron Review, Spectrum, and Lummox, to Playgirl and the newsletter of the U.S. Census Bureau. Bronstein has published five books of poetry, including her latest, Nasty Girls from Four Feathers Publishing. Her first crime story was published in 2017 in the anthology LAst Resort. Her adaptation of Shakespeare’s As You Like It was performed at two LA libraries. Her story “The Magic Candles” was performed on National Public Radio. She’s been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and four times for the Best of the Net awards.

Flow State by Ryan Racine

“Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water.”

 -Bruce Lee

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CN train yard with Falls view towers & the mist from the Falls in the background, 2004. Photograph by Tammy Frakking. Courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

Graffitied train carts mock the lineup of
halted vehicles, forcing us to direct our attention
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡to the tower in
the distance whispering
the swelling breath of
tourism.

Thick mist plays hopscotch on
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡the front windows, shielding us as spectators
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡from the Falls’
‡‡‡‡flow.

Upon parking on the Hill,
our newspaper umbrellas
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡become wishing wells,
where cacophonous cellulous break down
to form
unfamiliar intimacies of newly amalgamated
‡‡‡‡‡‡narratives.

As we get close to the
seventh wonder,
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡secreted ink
swim into
a symbiosis that roll further down our face, where Bush is
‡‡‡‡‡seducing Bin Laden and police
brutality has
become a national sport.

Ryan Racine earned his master’s of English language and literature from Brock University. Racine is currently working as a high school teacher and college instructor in Ontario. His poetry can be found in The Steel Chisel, Pauses/Words/Noises, The Brock University Anthology, Pictures & Portraits, Ekphrastic, Joypuke, Weekly Poems, and PACE Magazine.

See other poems by Ryan Racine on the Niagara Falls Poetry Project website:
•    Sorting Skins
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Into the Mist by Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews

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Cover of Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews’ book “Sunrise Over Lake Ontario”

I remember hearing it before seeing it.
Feeling in the heart its’ cosmic hum.
Pulse of blood rushing to the temples.
Heavy rollercoastering roar of current.
Its’ turquoise jade body inescapably ceding
to gravity’s ominous pull.
It was that high tide inside oneself. Immensity’s
Perpetual aortic leap into the drop of the abyss.
As I look at the erasures of us in those faded
Polaroids & Kodaks, I only now realize that we
Too, amidst those endless crowds of tourists,
Were no more than drops of water falling.
H2O particles. Spritz from life’s colossal flow.
River of consciousness eternally brimming,
Cascading over the escarpment or the universe.
Niagara Falls was our refuge from tedium.
So many times we drove down from boring,
Sweltering Sundays for a change in atmosphere.
How wondrous when visitors came from overseas
Yearning to see the Honeymoon Capital of the World.
We gladly drove them down through the highways
To wine country, Clifton Hill & Lundy’s Lane.
We sat and picnicked on the grass
Where multitudes had stood before.
They say the sun was out when Annie Edson
Survived her barrell trip over God’s water slide.
They say her agents had wolfish eyes.
Just tried to make a buck out of her skill.
But they too are gone. Now they sell postcards
Of her story and her name’s in all the gift shops.
The world’s sightseers are all here taking photos
& buying souvenirs. Soon they will drive off
To be replaced tomorrow and tomorrow
After that by new faces in search of wonder,
Each one repeating, sparkling, falling
On the arched green of time’s precipice
Invisible life force calling all of our names.
Oh mighty river, my heart is in your hands.

Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews is a poet and the host & coordinator of the Oakville Literary Cafe Series. Her new collection, Sunrise Over Lake Ontario, was published in 2019. Her previous poetry publications include: Sea Glass, The Whispers of Stones, The Red Accordion, Letters from the Singularity and A Jar of Fireflies. Josie’s poetry has been shortlisted for the Malahat Review’s Open Season Award, Descant’s Winston Collins Prize and The Canada Literary Review ’s Summer Poetry Competition, The Eden Mills Festival Literary Contest and the Henry Drummond Poetry Prize. Her poetry has won first place in Arborealis Anthology Contest and in Big Pond Rumours Literary E-Zine.

Visit Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews’ web page

This Moment by Patrick T. Reardon

reardon
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 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