Wine Tour Of Niagara Poem by Caroline Misner

The rush of the waterfalls softens me;
the deep gorge with its greasy crags,
wet with mist and warm as tears,
is a bowl of solitudes;
even the dull echoes are eaten
by the spray.

It is early September and the leaves
are beginning their blush:
prudish women in pink frilled petticoats.
The branches unfurl their talons
and elbow us along
on our rented bicycles.

There is no salt in the air;
the brine has been used up
like an overcrowded cemetery,
used up and forgotten among
the pear trees that flank the lanes.
Their hard jade fruits droop like tears,
unharvested.

A sudden crack flushes the dark starlings
from the fields. They drag
their shadows across the vineyards.
They have come to feast on the green and
magenta berries.
It is a thunder that rises in disembodied shawls
up the blue humps of the escarpment.

In town the tourists congregate
at rustic inns, unchanged since the days
of the waterfall’s novelty,
and sip amber wine sweet as cider juice
from tiny crystal goblets.
Doors slam like falling boots, last
years’ jellies gleam like jewels,
the musk of wine follows me
up the path
on my rented bicycle.