Pat, can you not see Kasper's email below? You responded to Kasper's comment it looks like to me. I may be stuck but your frets are wobbling it seems.
Funny you mention 'orchardist'. I remember as teacher this came up when students came to read the word, probably in Chekhov's 'The Cherry Orchard'. 16/17 year olds couldn't pronounce it. Had never seen the word in print. They would say it like 'orchid' with no sense that that were mis-pronouncing. I suppose all fruit they ever had came from a supermarket. My great uncle Jim lived on an apple orchard, in a stilted wooden two-room shack with a Coolgardie safe to keep his milk cool, at Harcourt near Bendigo, a hundred miles or so north west of Melbourne.
Bill
> On 8 Jan 2014, at 8:06 pm, Patrick McManus <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Kasper's email never arrived here!!
> Bill hope you are not stuck - orchardist sounds a nice job
> Cheers P
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Bill Wootton
> Sent: 08 January 2014 07:21
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Bridges
>
> 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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