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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 >