Saturday, June 16, 2012

The Cataracts of Paradise by Ssal Nogard a.k.a. The Cataracts of Iguacu (Iguazu)

Yes, this is about the Cataracts of Iguacu (Iguazu) you can scroll toward the bottom. 


Cataracts of Iguazu (Foz de Iguacu) The World's Highest Waterfalls



Slight Detour: Check out how I got to the Inauguration in D.C. and my Open Letter to President Obama and An Inaugural Poem I wrote for President Obama. Background Notes to the poem I wrote in Honor of President Obama's Inauguration are available in Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.




Cataracts of Iguazu Iguacu the Crazians Ssal Nogard
The Cataracts of Paradise is my version of the story based on the highest waterfall in the world, the Cataracts of Iguazu (or Iguacu with the funny little squiggle on the bottom of the "c") that runs between Brazil and Argentina.

The name means "really big water". The background story is the typical tragic one of star-crossed lovers, Naipi and Taroba. A (male) god saw Naipi and fell in love with her (beauty) but she preferred her mortal lover (really?) and as they were fleeing from the spurned and wrathful god down the river Iguazu, the god split the river in half (much like Moses) separating the lovers for eternity. 

(The funny thing is, I never read or heard of this story before I wrote this poem. The reason I thought of such a similar story is that I started thinking of Naiads and water nymphs, and drowning men--a la Odysseus but I guess those were water sirens--as is my wont when around or  reading about water. Of course, being a poet, my story had to have a tragic ending as well. Don't ask me where God came in. He just did. In my version, the water nymph started out that way, not human, and wants to become human to be with her human love. In the traditional story, I guess the lovers are human.)

It is at this precarious juncture that those who try to navigate the falls will not come out alive. Hence, it has come to be known as Garganta del Diablo, which means Devil's Throat. (I did hear that is was called the Devil's Throat when I was traveling nearby but did not have time to take a detour there.)

In the traditional story, the rejected godling is vengeful. In my story (and I have no idea why I wrote such a similar story), God is a little sad that the nymph girl wants to leave, but God lets her go anyway, knowing that she won't be any happier in human form. But alas, humans (and newly transformed naiads-to-maidens must learn things for themselves. The hard way.


The Cataracts of Paradise


The cataracts of Iguacu
fall from the steps
                      of highness
down to the arms
        of el Diablo
                      and roar into the dryness.

Diablo’s arms encircle falls
that crash down
                     his enfolding.
Yet all the drops rise back on high
       to blight
                     his infernal holding.

A kind of space
       within the walls
forms at Diablo’s base,
       where nothing moves or shivers--
                    except one lonely grace.

They say upon a time 
       there once
was formed
                   inside the mind
       of god a fancy passing fair
                   kept separate from mankind.

he kept it lone at Iguacu
       for
       this fancy passing fair was such
a thing of peerless grace,
       which man should never touch.

Thus, in the forest by the falls
       there lived a maid thing
                 of the trees.
Her form was like a veil of mist.
                 Her hair was of the breeze.

Her shape was of a comeliness
        that set man in her thralls.
Her song was cousin
                 to the sirens
and her eyes
                 were of the Falls.
For in the falls she saw her down
        a fate made even fairer,
Within her eye a sight
                 of Him,
        therefrom gleams
                 her terror.

But something happened long ago, 
They say: upon a yearly
        a man did touch the passing fair
                 so that Iguacu fell
                 severely.

Come far and wide like many men
        from whence He came is hidden.
He only knew he came to taste
        the fruits that were forbidden.

But really He was not a man
        but boy between the line
                   of gravity and boundless fancy,
        He chose what he could find.

With vigor did He seek a spirit
        whose life the lore was told
        if caught could give him
                 His desire
                             beyond the worth of gold.

He stood there on a ledge that thrust
                into the waterfall.
And when he spied the two bright eyes
                             fell he within her thrall.

She saw him too
                and too at once
a longing sprung
        within her form.
It sprouted like an evil weed
                and yet her heart was warm.

Her heart, though really she had not
         a heart to feel
                the things of bliss,
that souls can feel, but yet
               she could
endure what part-souls cannot miss.
And so her half-soul felt a warming
       as such a part-soul might permit,
                but with it at the time
                                       and same
a pin of cold
                went through it.

For she was not of blood and sinew
       mere substance of fire
                and vim,
a soulless pittance that feared
                her fate
                from god, who made his whim.

She had no corporality
                to make the love He desired.
       Thus He prayed to god to give
                her essence
                            what love required.

God listened and as usual
       he gave a saddened sigh,
                           and gave up what was asked of him
                to her that lived on high.

Drawn long and pale
                in resignation
       she shimmered into state,
                           diminished by her body,
                she came full to her fate.

She has a soul so long as she
                is bathed within the falls.
      Yet if she ever crashes down. . .
                           is tender for the walls.

Through moonlight upon the falls
                erupts a light
                           of kind unseen
in this they bathed in love
                unhallowed.
Came nothing in between.


They wallowed in infinity
                 the nymph girl and her boy
                 and with uncommon might
                           and main
he gave her body joy.

She had the limbs of heaven’s ease
                in which He glorified
and paid the ransom of the saints--
                like them:
                           divinely died.

And with her new-found faith did she,
                           moan soft idolatries.
Yet god awayed his grief
                and
                           pretended not to see.

Sometime in their love
                                          that was
                the nymph girl gave a shudder.
                           She slipped through
                                          her love’s embrace
                and broke him as no other.

And in the moment when she fell
       the cataracts grew mute.
                The only sound that could be heard
                                          were
                           her trees that followed suit.

She let no scream pass through her lips
       nor tear fall
                from her eye. 
Though terror reigned again complete
                 beginning from on high.

Her body viscerated in
                 the mists
       that rise from
                 the wall’s embrace.
Save the bright terror
                 of her eyes,
       her soul flows unencased.

Thus now she is part mist and nymph,
       a half-soul he cannot hold.
                And he knows why there are
                           some things
       that god leaves from the fold.


The falls fell fey
                           upon that day
       their nymph became their leaven.
Still He laments why there are things
                           that god brings not to heaven. 

The falls changed with a slightness
                           like a line that was
                                               lengthened
Still men blight the cataracts
        whose walls were ever strengthened.

Thus she may never leave the falls
until He can defer
        a love without the boon of god
but then he would not
                                        need her.

He cups his hands upon the ledge
       to catch the eyes
                that downpour
But the nymph of Iguacu
                 will fall
       for ever and for more.

Yet once or twice a moonlit night
                a drop of falls shines clearer
these are, they say, the bright eyes
                of terror
that grips her even dearer.

A glimpse he often gets of her
       that paid all for their love.
but never catching her bright eyes
       he looks ceaselessly above.

And as she falls she seeks salvation
       he solely can confer--
but the steps to heaven bid him pass
       so long as he is
                without her.
But with his soul he still does hope
                and never will forget
nor she but with her soul
       has only memory
                and no regret.

Let no man doubt that
                Eden and hell
are linked by Iguacu
       Just peer into the eyes of her
                           that lives and joins the two. 

The cataracts of Iguacu
       fall down from Paradise
raining down twice heaven’s
       length
                into Diablo’s vise.

And in the falls there is a girl
                who endlessly pays the toll
       for reaching out
                beyond her fancy
with which to reach her soul.


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