The Bridge (Eliot Cardinaux)

The hum of summer,
arched brow of the transparent bridge,

half-finished to heaven.

I learn again

what I know of knowledge,

leaning against the mystery.

I find it open,

this door to the desert

from the myths.

It’s not the water

smoking in the east,

the sun is not a thing like this,

an idea that drinks itself

from the borders.

Calm like a Moorish song,

I watch an old dance.

The flowers growing up,

the sky with clouds flowing

at a faster pace than I.

The bridge is my road –

two musics, of land and of sky

mount a horse that left me

on my way from the forest.

And I must play

on the strings of night

the sorrow of the land

to clear the air

of a laugh that wounds

a million stars.

The bridge is where a stranger

once stumbled upon himself

in the music of the stranger

and learned again

what he knew of knowledge

on which a mystery now leans.                 

EC, July 2010