Burning Bridge
The bai and I walked together.
It wanted to show me a burning bridge
that snaked nova bright for miles
toward something black and flat in the water.
A throng gathered on the shore in spite
of the furious transformation of matter
into driving columns of smoke
going nowhere, nowhere.
The sky, inseparable from night,
sat atop us. They plotted no stars.
The lashings of ash closed our throats.
I wanted to ask: "Who set the fire"?
The faces of dark figures beside us
leapt to life in the sputtering light.
It could be any of them: the pale lad
whose first love conjured the flame; his first hate
carried it to term. Or the older woman
whose battered heart could no longer double
as a flotation device. She happened upon
a half-drowned match and kept it for sentiment.
When the clock hands busily accounting
for someone's easing into age have milled with diligence,
the forgotten cache could loose its sulfurous
kiss upon the world. Or the couple whose child
was born without sense, who was neither
mineral, vegetable, nor animal. Their sorrow
overflowing, a volcanic rupture.
The earth means nothing but a covering,
a torn veil. This the child would never know,
nor the terrible schism of healed souls,
the sinking of ancient rivers into the very sand
they had made verdant and tall. This is also
a way of being, of remaining whole.
Or maybe they all had a hand in it.
The bridge could have brought changes.
They would have had to change.
Perhaps. "Where did the bridge lead?"
Does it matter? The long spine, long spurned,
snapped its white whip and broke through the sea.
Silence roared back in shock.
We saw nothing else. Night went on.
It was only an island.
They should have let it remain that way.
It wanted to show me a burning bridge
that snaked nova bright for miles
toward something black and flat in the water.
A throng gathered on the shore in spite
of the furious transformation of matter
into driving columns of smoke
going nowhere, nowhere.
The sky, inseparable from night,
sat atop us. They plotted no stars.
The lashings of ash closed our throats.
I wanted to ask: "Who set the fire"?
The faces of dark figures beside us
leapt to life in the sputtering light.
It could be any of them: the pale lad
whose first love conjured the flame; his first hate
carried it to term. Or the older woman
whose battered heart could no longer double
as a flotation device. She happened upon
a half-drowned match and kept it for sentiment.
When the clock hands busily accounting
for someone's easing into age have milled with diligence,
the forgotten cache could loose its sulfurous
kiss upon the world. Or the couple whose child
was born without sense, who was neither
mineral, vegetable, nor animal. Their sorrow
overflowing, a volcanic rupture.
The earth means nothing but a covering,
a torn veil. This the child would never know,
nor the terrible schism of healed souls,
the sinking of ancient rivers into the very sand
they had made verdant and tall. This is also
a way of being, of remaining whole.
Or maybe they all had a hand in it.
The bridge could have brought changes.
They would have had to change.
Perhaps. "Where did the bridge lead?"
Does it matter? The long spine, long spurned,
snapped its white whip and broke through the sea.
Silence roared back in shock.
We saw nothing else. Night went on.
It was only an island.
They should have let it remain that way.