When the bridge is gone, the narrowest plank becomes precious.
—Hungarian Proverb
The bridge is gone, after all,
dismantled and then burned,
out of spite or for warmth,
I could not tell. Perhaps both.
I suppose that eventually
the termites would have gotten it.
Nothing lasts forever. I know that.
But I wish you had left
something more than a pile
of ash, some other way I might
cross over and meet you today.
As it is, the ravine is too deep
and steep to cross without a bridge,
and the ridge goes on in both directions
as far as I have ever walked.
Sometimes I imagine wings, but
we both know that is just imagining.
Perhaps if I look hard enough
around the site where we
constructed the bridge long ago,
I could find just one narrow plank.
Sometimes I forget the metaphors.
I practice just picking up the phone,
dialing your number, saying Hello.
But then I remember the curling smoke.
And I put down my ideas
and tell myself it’s better this way,
though already I have forgotten why.
mmmmm… This one tingled my heart, especially now. My mother died on Mothers Day — in my arms. Though a difficult relationship over the years, I love her. I still think to pick up the phone to tell her a bit of something…
We built and burned bridges over and over again.
The ashes, cremation.
Wonderful how a poem meets it readers where they are at…
just lovely
Thank you for sharing this resonance with me … what a major transition you are going through. Many blessings to you as you move through these days and the paradox in them
Your word choice, intentional or not, is just marvelous in the title — ends — which suggests to me a clever play against (or with) bridges, especially for that space between us that is “too deep or steep” to cross without one. It could so easily have been the word “endings”. These bridges do have ends in the building of them and also in their destruction.
Hello,
I wanted to let you know how very deeply this poem touched me. It perfectly encapsulates how I feel after going through a painful divorce. Thank you.
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Thank you for your response, Linda, thank you. I am struck by the paradox, how losses also bring people together.