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Forgotten Ground Regained

What Builds a Bridge

Ted Charnley
Since a spring behind my homehas carved out a creek with its careless scour,flux and flow have divided my fieldswith banks all too steep to step or straddle.What courses for creeks, except to severfield into fields, man from fellow?
Building a bridge for cutting acrosswill fetch an old friend who’s drifted far,to help by hefting a second hammer,railroad ties, rock for riprap,pressure-treated pine and some metal posts.In our back and forth, a bridge will take form.
The heat is heavy, here in August.Saws and sawdust, wisecracks and sweat,have come to the creek. It’s chill in its channel,tempting until we toss ourselves in.What courses in creeks to gouge or gully,welcomes and cools us, we who will work.
The span is suspended, poised in its place,secure as the currents are carried under.Bank to bank, no boundary standsor rift is as wide as the will to reach.What builds a bridge is lines through a border,fields or friends that refuse to be parted.
  • Photograph by Jakub Halun. CC by SA 4.0 International
Copyright © Ted Charnley, 2023 First Published in Forgotten Ground Regained: A Journal of Alliterative Verse, New Series, Issue 1, Winter, 2024
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