Explore "17"

On the Brooklyn Bridge

 

The river here is laden

with the commerce of the seas

irridescent with oil

moving as ever to the ocean

caught in a temporal groove

from beginning to end

of a downhill journey.

 

I see it below through gaps in walkway boards

that wear the weather of their lives

in grained and dense solidity -

ridges and valleys cut

from a concentric record of wet years and dry.

 

Layered above this older history

cigar-scar boot-dent stain and scratch preserve

the tracks of walkers who have passed this way,

paused, and for a moment rested here.

 

Suspended in a web of steel

between sky and the reflection of sky

I raise my arms in emulation of

the cables' parabolic grace -

 

Tensile meridians cascade to me

and we capture in timeless genuflection

a stillness beyond the river's teeming flow,

the soar and dive of raucous gulls.

 

Angel wings on either side of me

ascend to gothic arches and down again

to Brooklyn and Manhattan shores.

The moment stretches out

like a cable strand spun taut and singing

the perfect one unwavering note.

- by Shep -

 

Done