#157 Kevin Brophy 'Pride'

#157 ‘Pride’

I read of the pride men take in building bridges

because the bridges lie like fallen gods across

the floods and chasms that would stop us.

The bridges take us out and up, across,

and then sweetly down on their sturdy backs

and solid legs half sunk in mud and stone for us.

The workingmen who make them love them.

They are a memory of dizzy heights, rivets, bolts,

spans that settle keyed and poised above

all that creeping to the edge and wondering.