April 29 - Bridge Builder

Bridge-Builder

I remember how that bridges

Always held an utter fascination

When I was just a bootless boy

With ample time and much imagination.

When I would with building blocks, Erector sets,

Hunks of stone, woodpile scraps and slivers,

Litter the house with rickety bridges

That spanned imaginary rivers.

It was the barriers I suppose

That I never really liked,

Always in the way of where I wished to go,

Barring every quiet trail I hiked.

Rivers invited me to build canoes.

Gullies, ravines defied me to try

To traverse intricacies of knots and rope,

Some book had taught me how to tie.

In the intervening years I’ve built

More bridges than I care to say

Some well used. Others, not so much.

It does not matter anyway.

You are not required to always cross

Every bridge encountered everywhere.

Bridge-builders do not mind, just so.

If a bridge is wanted, it is there.

That’s all I really wanted all along.

To leave behind me crossings that abide

A string of bridges, spanning barriers

Paths by which to reach the other side.

I hope that God will leave some rivers

When he makes the Earth anew.  

Chasms I can throw a span across;

And places I can build a bridge or two.

© 2016 by Tom King