Niagara of memory viii. Canada Never

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i.
when I was a child
Nike missiles pointed at the sky
when ever we were afraid

When Khrushchev
hammered his shoe
the missiles lifted

When Cuba
began to build
Russian missiles
our missiles lifted

When a submarine
came too close
our missiles lifted

When an airplane
strayed afar
our missiles lifted

When the Russian Navy
put to sea
our missiles lifted

When the Soviet
Army marched
our missiles lifted.

When in Washington
our men
were frightened
our missiles lifted

Did the missiles
save us?
As a child
I did not know

In my naïve
way I did know
that we did
duck and cover
when
our missiles lifted

ii.
Nearby the  missiles were great balls of ice cream, each one perhaps 10 or 20 yards across. We were told that these great domes protected the sky. Now of course I understand that these great white balls sheltered sweeping radar antennae.

We were told that the Nike missiles would rush into the sky to take down any Russians before they could reach us with their atom bombs  (That's what we called them then -- atomic bombs).  What they did not tell us was that these missiles would shoot up from Niagara Falls where we lived over to Canada where they would explode with their own  nuclear fury, bringing down not one, but a wave of Russian bombers.

I wonder what the Canadians thought of this idea-  that American atomic bombs would detonate over their lands and people.  Perhaps they did not know that the America's nuclear shield rested on their heads.

iii.
I think  clean
Canada
a lake
only
the faintest
tobacco
stain

swimming
in plain
sight
of  the bottom
and sky

hard rock
Islands
between the grass
and poor scrub
pine

sky
blue to black
and the thousand thousand
stars
fireflies
no difference

iv.
In 1961 when the Power Project was completed, Niagara Falls  became the largest hydropower producer in the Western world. Waters diverted from the Niagara River fed great generators that supplied electricity to homes and industry as far as New York City, 250 miles to the south. Survivability was the buzzword of American defense plans in the 1950s and 60s. War hawks like Gen. Curtis LeMay believed that a small nuclear conflict could be survived, leading to an American victory. More than 310 Nike missile sites dotted the United States, protecting vital resources and populations. Each site held three or four underground bunkers feeding missile after missile to launching rails above.  It is not known how many of these sites were nuclear capable. Given the otherwise miserable ineffectiveness of the Nike system, it seems likely that most of the missiles were nuclear tipped.
Canada's largest city, Toronto,  is due north of Niagara Falls, at just the optimum range for a Nike missile

v.
bright
I think scoured
Canada
a lake
steaming
black
and gray

rock
and ash
here and there
white with heat
Ash

Toronto
still
no cries
just ash
Ash
still

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Niagara of Memory ix. Blades

When I was a young child it became my habit to follow my grandfather's every step. One day, when his tractor was broken we drove down the road toward the river.

The upper Niagara
smooth
deceptive
green
wideness
shines
then shimmers
at noon

My grandfather's friend was a welder, and had fashioned a part for our ancient John Deere. We stood in the bright sun of noon in the man's dusty barnyard. There was a boat up on blocks. It was full of shine and polish. I walked around the boat, dragging my finger across to surface in that mannered way that only small boys could accomplish. As I came close to the stern of the boat and it's two polished propellers, the man and my grandfather rushed to me. The man pointed his finger at me, scolding me for the marks that I left on his beautiful boat. But, all the more so for coming near his propellers. My grandfather said to me: "These are so sharp that you'd as soon lose a finger as touch them."

The upper Niagara
cold
broken ice
running snow
twisting cold
blue
sightless gray
sundark
at noon

Driving with my grandfather again. Again his tractor had broken down, but now it was the unrelenting gray of winter. He was a good neighbor, my grandfather. His tractor plowed a dozen driveways after a winter snow. His generator gave light and heat to five or six houses when the power went out in a storm. He was a good neighbor. The road was ice and slush as we drove.  I stayed in the car as my grandfather met the welder. He returned a the few minutes, struggling to carry a heavy load in the snow and ice. I used my breath to clear a patch on the window, so that I could see my grandfather. Behind him, just out of the gray shadows, I could see the boat. Even in the winter it stood there dangerous.

The upper Niagara
thick green
green  windowglass
infinite depth
under the shelter
of a willow tree
darning needles
and damsels
shimmering in
silver flakes
of heat

It was late in the spring of my sixth year when we drove down to the river again. No tractor problems then. We went all the way to the river, to see my grandfather's friend race his dangerous boat. All the boats ran full throttle, on but never in the water. They did not roar so much as scream a high-pitched complaint. Behind each boat a great tail of water rose into the sky. The river bank was lined with people, some jostling a little here and there the better to see. My whole family was right at the river's edge, sitting in lawn chairs waiting for our friend to race.  I remember being worried that some boat might not stop, or understand that the Falls were there, just a mile or two down the river. My grandfather's friend made it round the circuit twice, but then his boat touched the water, and then again deeper still as it atumbled across the green. Our friend was hurt, but not too badly. Those shiny dangerous propellers sank beneath the river.

Niagara of Memory xi., Drift

This bright memory.

A small child
dressed for the cold
stands beside a drift,
watching his father shovel.
 

The child uses mittened hands
to carve a space in the drift.
It becomes a cave of sorts.
 

The child lays himself down
into the cave, finding warmth
as he pulls the snow inward,
shutting out the wind and sky.
 

Light, coloured by snow 
passes through the walls of his cave,
a flood of sparks, green and blue.
 

The arms of the father
enfold as he is lifted
from the snow,
cold, near senseless.


The cold is white
that blankets the heart
and steals all colour away.
The cold.

Niagara of Memory i. Young Boy

When I was a young boy

my mother was given to fits

of melancholia and meanness.

Her mother, whom I loved,

lived on another road

two or 3 miles away.

When my mother was bad

my grandmother would

catch me in her arms

and take me to her home

where I would stay

for a week or two or three

But then, I would go

to my mothers house

that was never home,

and wait.

Niagara of Memory ii. $20

In the town Sanborn, New York

a tiny village in the snow and cold

that shades the southern length

of Lake Ontario to a depth of 10 or 20 miles.

It was a sunny day,

but not the hard, blue light

of winter days.

the softer light of spring shone

Spring had an odor

through the shallow
half melted snow
we could smell the soil

damp and full of the  new

I was driving with my grandmother

to buy a new pair of dungarees

(that was what we called "jeans"

in the day. Those are the words

my son uses to dismiss me

when I speak of anything

that happened prior to

his birth.)

It was in the morning

it must've been in the morning

for my grandmother was an early riser

any task that required driving

was done early in the day

for she was terribly afraid

to drive at night.

We were just on the outskirts of town

what I shouted out stop

then again stop

the grating squeal

of near useless  brakes

from the 1963 falcon

filled the air

I scrambled over the seat

and before my grandmother

could catch me

I was out the door

and running back down the road

I came back

a $20 bill

in my grip

I held it between my two hands

so that my grandmother could see

why I had frightened her so

for our sudden stop

Her eyes softened

and why didn't a bit

back then

$20 was like $100 now

not enough to kill for

but more than enough to stop for

For months after that

my grandmother would tell the story

of how her grandson had such eyes

as to be able to see a $20 bill

lying in the grass

alongside the road

while driving by at 40 miles an hour.

Clearly, she was impressed.

I was a little less impressed

you see, I pay for the groceries that week

and received a double allowance for my vigilance.

I took in $.50,

not bad, for a $20 bill. You

Niagara of Memory iii. Older Boy

When I was in third grade

(I think that makes me eight years old)

my mother and father

moved to a new house

down near Elmira.

Elmira  was a sad small city

where the belt had rusted early

factories closed, jobs lost

but still, neat green lawns

and well-kept houses.

The weeds came later,

after Dr. King died.

My parents house was one of these

a small patch of green

White and single-storied

with only two bedrooms.

My brother and I shared a room

he's still wet the bed (he was five years old)

so, the room always had a scale and acrid odor

an awful smell that I remember so well.

On the day that we left Sanborn,

my grandmother leaned close to me

and handed me a little card with a phone number

and said "if you ever need me, just call."

And then she said, in a voice that was meant to be heard

skedaddle, go home with your mommy.

By then, I never called her "Mama" or "mommy"

by then, she no longer had a name or title.

In my little boy mind,

she had lost name and title

and was only called mother

in the abstract third person --

"my mother said this", or "my mother said that."

When I spoke to her,

I no longer use the title.

I just spoke.  She never noticed.

I tried to use the little card

only once. It didn't work.

Niagara of Memory iv. The Falls

 Niagara poured

 gray brown water

 smelling faintly

 of iodine

 Crushed water

 scuding over,

 over broken rocks

 I saw a drunk there

 stumbling around

 by a river fence

 I suppose like the water

 he could fall

 but he did not

 although he fell

 it was not like water

 There was no scent

 other than the acrid

 smell of sweat and piss

 And that was all that spilled

 a little blood and piss

 The man was nothing,

 nothing like the Falls

Niagara of Memory v. Storytelling

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My Grandfather was a storyteller, but not in the manner of Clemens or Will Rodgers.

He held no nostalgia and no great love for the past.

He did not seek wisdom, but loved progress. His stories were of Popular Mechanics as life: Cars that could fly, engines that ran on water as fuel, miracle cleaners and labor saving devices. He believed in Progress, in the technical world giving life.

He worked most of his life in a chemical factory. He took early retirement when he found the tremor in his hands and the spasms that overtook his gait embarrassing.

He trembled with mercury poisoning. I’ve never been sure: Was he a martyr or a fool?

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Niagara of Memory vi. Kathy

It began in the locker room

a kind of joke

a nasty joke

that no one believed

but everyone thought was true

Her name was Kathy

she was an ordinary kind of girl

an everyday kind of girl

she wasn’t beautiful

but she wasn’t ugly

What they said about her was

it was terribly ugly

the kind of thing that is said

but can never be unsaid

however much we might wish

If we said it here

it would still be ugly

and still be untrue

but however much we might wish

we could never take it back again

Her name was Kathy

she was an ordinary kind of girl

and every day kind of girl

neither beautiful nor ugly

but everyone knew the truth about Kathy

Niagara of Memory vii. mothers, daughters, sons

My great-grandmother
on my mothers side
the not so secret shame
of a family given to secrets
and half truth

When I was a child
and she was perhaps 65
and on her fourth husband
she used to cackle
and make sounds
that I did not believe
were possible

I remember
visiting her
just as my new teeth
were coming in.

My mouth ached
and she brought out
a clean washcloth
and poured rye whiskey
on the cloth till it was soaked

She handed it to me,
and said
chew on this
it'll help the pain
and she was right
it did help

Her hair was bright red
just like Lucille Ball's
it was very thin
and seemed to float
above her scalp
it made a sort
of strawberry halo

My grandmother
whom I love so deeply
could barely stand to speak
with her mother
who had abandoned her
as a child

Whenever we came home
from visiting her mother
my grandmother
would go to her room
and stay there
until it was time
time to prepare our supper

My mother told me stories
of her grandmother
my great-grandmother
the old woman
with bright red hair.

When Elsie was young
her red hair was not a Halo
but a mark of her profession
she was a "cook"
for a lumber camp
up north in Ontario

Which I always thought
terribly funny
because she could not cook
she lived on take-out
Long before take-out existed.

Her fourth husband
always sat in the living room
listening to the radio
when we came to visit
we would stay in the kitchen
we did not greet one another.

Did I say that she cackled
She did.
When I was a child
I thought it very funny
but now I know
it was just a sign
a sign that she was drunk

When my great-grandmother Elsie
finally died, she was in her 90s
and my grandmother was greatly relieved
in that she had for the previous 10 years
been required by her conscience
to visit her mother twice a week
in the one-room flat
the county welfare had given her.

When Elsie died
the church she had attended
for 30 years
refused to say a funeral mass
not because she was
a whore or a haradan
(and she was perhaps both those things)
but, because she was cremated

The priest said
that it was an insult
to the doctrine of the resurrection
as if it were easier to resurrect
the worm ridden corpses of the buried
than the grey dross of her remains

he was a fool
and he was mean

A methodist pastor
a kindly fool
took on the impossible job
of saying kind and foolish words
to heal a breach
that perfect depth

But there are no words
by some fool of a parson
which can convey
an unsought healing
upon the survivors of
this red haired infamy

My grandmother cried
locked away in her room
so that we could not see
her tears, but we could see
just as if we were in the room
we could see the tears
in our imaginations

My mother just sat
and smoked cigarettes
she said nothing
which was unusual
for she had inherited
the role of the harridan
and she reveled in it

Somehow, the baseness
and the meanness
of my great-grandmother
skipped a generation
leaving my grandmother
a wounded innocent
between her mother
and her daughter

But Catherine
(that was my grandmother's name)
somehow stayed unstained
free from the anger
and the mistakes of judgment
that crippled the moral life
of her mother and her daughter

it was not that she was oblivious
actually she was acute
in her observations
of the world, both natural
and unnatural

She was a gardener
on a grand scale
in her small market garden
where in the acres of tomatoes
carrots, potatoes and corn
she put aside an acre
to plant with flowers

The flowers were good business
she sold them to funeral homes
and florists in town
but the acre of flowers
was close to the house
and all summer long
she woke to the sight and smell
of many flowers

Catherine cried
and I think she cried often
I think she mourned a childhood lost
and the marriage without love
but only the thin tenderness of mutual regard
and the compact of survival
made between opposing powers

I loved my grandfather
he was strong
and had a voice that was low and determined
and he loved me
and even though he was a man, strong
and self-sufficient
he was not afraid to say
to his grandson, that he loved him.

But, I think that he was a mean man
as much feared as respected by his friends
and I think that he hated women
much more than he respected them
and I think that my grandmother
Catherine was in some terrible way
caught up in this hatred
that meshed neatly
with the self-portrait
that she carried 'round
in her head.

His name was Harold
(that was his middle name,
but he we choose not to use his first name
which was John
because John was his father's name
and he was loath to use the name
of the man he hated and feared

John, my grandfather's father
was by all accounts
a man filled with hatreds
and some kind of terrible fear.

John was a strange kind of ex-pat
a Canadian by birth
who came south
just across the border
at Niagara Falls
to work the trains
Of the Erie Lackawanna

John died before I was born
so I have nothing but
the suspicious memories of others
to give him life
or the breath
that comes from
retrospection that in anamnesis
grows a new garden
of sinew and bone
muscles and blood and skin
(the hipbone connects to the...)
a garden that a picture does become
cleaned up a little
neatened around the edges
and made less the bloody mess
that this wannabe monster was.

God, how he hated
Papists and Jews
Niggers and Spics
perhaps all those polite Canadians
asked him to leave
when it became apparent
that he was a bundle of hatreds
swaddled in the blood of others.

I tremble, even writing
those foul words
I can not bring those words forward
save, somehow, that I can strike them out
they disfigure my page
replicating that terrible pain
with each unfolding.

But, John did hate
any lineament
that betrayed too much otherness
that bespoke strange allegiances
and foreign powers.

For a man born across the border
he saw America as too small
his adopted country too frail
his home to easily stained
by the tears or the blood
of that other
hellborne, how he did hate.

That leaves I think
my brother and me
and of me
you have these many words
that lie and cheat
that the truth might be

My brother's name was Paul
but no saint was he
though once he did fall from his horse
and retreat to silence
for a day or two

His name was Paul
and he hated
he hated my mother and his lying life
he hated all that was bright and shiny
all that hinted of a life
that was more than could be seen
by bloodshot eyes.

I saw him the first night he drank
he was so young
but even then at 12 or 13
it was clear that his incomparable
mind was headed down some
angry stretch of road
where desolation lived
being wed to his liver
and tightening its claws

No one really tried
to take away the booze
the grass
the amphetamines
that made him whirl
like some maddened dervish
who spins and spins, then spins again
away from God, away from love
away from intellect and hope

This sparkling mind
that as a child
set his world alight
with questions
and answers
beyond what could be
for an innocent
a child

But that was gone
gone never to return
the drugs
the alcohol
pulled him down
to a place far beneath
Satan's old lair
you see, he hated
hated what he could be

It was a lonely road at night
I do not know if there was a moon or not
he drank that night
but then, he always drank at night
he was with a friend
another souless child
enveloped likewise in rage
they were a month or two
after having left school
when the car turned
and went end for end
killing one not two

It took a while his death
ten days and a bit more
crucified on a Stryker frame
dying an inch at a time
as he refused to live
the blood would not stop
to bleed in some unseen place
down in the gut
so he died
a death all his own

and that leaves me
and that leaves me