Many thanks, Kasper. Final couplet (and indeed final section) is still a work in progress, appended yesterday when I realised the two particular bridges I was celebrating were not ones to put spring in step, they not offering crossability.
Bill
> On 8 Jan 2014, at 11:36 am, Kasper Salonen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> 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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