This is magnificent, the majesty of bridges at their best resonates
strongly in these four sections. The hint of myth in the Benezet story
rounds out the mysticism. Not only that, but the lyrical and yet perfectly
disinterested style makes up for the splash of water that is the final
line. I love it.
KS
---
Kasper Salonen, toiminnanjohtaja
Helsinki Poetry Connection
http://hkipoetryconnection.blogspot.com/
+358505554947
On 7 January 2014 23:05, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Bridges
>
> i
>
> Walk a bridge to connect, to pass
> over a gulf. To be on a bridge is to be
>
> neither in one place or another. Rarely
> destination, bridges embody journey.
>
>
> ii
>
> Avignon's stone bridge stops mid-Rhone
> tantalising with just four extant arches
>
> of its once majestic twenty two.
> Even computer imaging and years
>
> of research can't line up remnant piles.
> Must have been zig-zags
>
> for added strength, perhaps, in floods.
> Benezet the shepherd it's said,
>
> 850 years ago, with Divine push, hefted
> and hurled a huge rock in the river
>
> which became stone one of Pont
> d'Avignon. Benezet's journey ended
>
> with his interment within the bridge
> before its completion. Disinterment
>
> nearly 500 years later,
> scored him patron sainthood.
>
>
> iii
>
> Just north of Melbourne, two parallel bridges
> span Arthurs Creek. Only one takes traffic.
>
> Burke's duplicated concrete and bitumen
> bridge towards Nutfield, flat and functional
>
> but adjacent, original Burke's Bridge,
> a timbertrestle construction, now spattered
>
> with leaves and gum bark peelings, blocked
> at either end with boulders, remains
>
> the real enchanter. Patrick Burke, orchardist
> and nurseryman settled on 20 acres in 1864.
>
> None of which explains why supporting posts
> either side of the creek are not parallel.
>
>
> iv
>
> Alighting from a bridge makes you feel lighter.
> Puts a little spring in your step or your tyres.
>
> You've left somewhere behind. Crossed.
> You're somewhere else. What now?
>
> But it takes now uncrossable bridges
> to remind us how well stuck we might be.
>
>
> bw
> 8.1.14
>
>
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