The Iron Bridge
I am standing on a disused iron bridge
That was erected in 1902,
According to the iron plaque bolted into a beam,
The year my mother turned one.
Imagine a mother in her infancy,
And she was a Canadian infant at that,
One of the great infants of the province of Ontario.
But here I am leaning on the rusted railing
Looking at the water below,
Which is flat and reflective this morning,
Sky-blue and streaked with high clouds,
And the more I look at the water,
Which is like a talking picture,
The more I think of 1902
When workmen in shirts and caps
Riveted this iron bridge together
Across a thin channel joining two lakes
Where wildflowers blow along the shore now
And pairs of swans float in the leafy coves.
1902 my mother was so tiny
She could have fit into one of those oval
Baskets for holding apples,
Which her mother could have lined with a soft cloth
And placed on the kitchen table
So she could keep an eye on infant Katherine
While she scrubbed potatoes or shelled a bag of peas,
The way I am keeping an eye on that cormorant
Who just broke the glassy surface
And is moving away from me and the iron bridge,
Swiveling his curious head,
Slipping out to where the sun rakes the water
And filters through the trees that crowd the shore.
And now he dives,
Disappears below the surface,
And while I wait for him to pop up,
I picture him flying underwater with his strange wings,
As I picture you, my tiny mother,
Who disappeared last year,
Flying somewhere with your strange wings,
Your wide eyes, and your heavy wet dress,
Kicking deeper down into a lake
With no end or name, some boundless province of water.
Related poetry:
- The Bridge In his travels he comes to a bridge made entirely of bones. Before crossing he writes a letter to his mother: Dear mother, Guess what? the ape accidentally bit off one of his hands while Eating a banana. Just now I am at the foot of a bone bridge. I Shall be crossing it shortly. […]...
- An Address to the New Tay Bridge Beautiful new railway bridge of the Silvery Tay, With your strong brick piers and buttresses in so grand array, And your thirteen central girders, which seem to my eye Strong enough all windy storms to defy. And as I gaze upon thee my heart feels gay, Because thou are the greatest railway bridge of the […]...
- Cold Iron Cold is for the mistress silver for the maid Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.” “Good!” said the Baron, sitting in his hall, “But Iron Cold Iron is master of them all.” So he made rebellion ‘gainst the King his liege, Camped before his citadel and summoned it to siege. “Nay!” said the […]...
- The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay! With your numerous arches and pillars in so grand array And your central girders, which seem to the eye To be almost towering to the sky. The greatest wonder of the day, And a great beautification to the River Tay, Most beautiful to be seen, Near by Dundee […]...
- The Tay Bridge Disaster Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay! Alas! I am very sorry to say That ninety lives have been taken away On the last Sabbath day of 1879, Which will be remember’d for a very long time. ‘Twas about seven o’clock at night, And the wind it blew with all its might, And the rain […]...
- Mirabeau Bridge Under Mirabeau Bridge runs the Seine And our loves Must I remember them Joy came always after pain Let arriving night explain Days fade I remain Arm in arm let us stay face to face While below The bridge at our hands passes With eternal regards the wave so slow Let arriving night explain Days […]...
- Faith is the Pierless Bridge Faith is the Pierless Bridge Supporting what We see Unto the Scene that We do not Too slender for the eye It bears the Soul as bold As it were rocked in Steel With Arms of Steel at either side It joins behind the Veil To what, could We presume The Bridge would cease to […]...
- For Once, Then, Something Others taught me with having knelt at well-curbs Always wrong to the light, so never seeing Deeper down in the well than where the water Gives me back in a shining surface picture Me myself in the summer heaven godlike Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs. Once, when trying with chin […]...
- The Bridge of Lodi I When of tender mind and body I was moved by minstrelsy, And that strain “The Bridge of Lodi” Brought a strange delight to me. II In the battle-breathing jingle Of its forward-footing tune I could see the armies mingle, And the columns cleft and hewn III On that far-famed spot by Lodi Where Napoleon […]...
- THE BRIDGE I stood on the bridge at midnight, As the clocks were striking the hour, And the moon rose o’er the city, Behind the dark church-tower. I saw her bright reflection In the waters under me, Like a golden goblet falling And sinking into the sea. And far in the hazy distance Of that lovely night […]...
- The Iron Gate WHERE is this patriarch you are kindly greeting? Not unfamiliar to my ear his name, Nor yet unknown to many a joyous meeting In days long vanished, is he still the same, Or changed by years, forgotten and forgetting, Dull-eared, dim-sighted, slow of speech and thought, Still o’er the sad, degenerate present fretting, Where all […]...
- Bridge Over The Aire Book 5 MOORING POSTS 1 The mooring posts marked on the South Leeds map Of 1908 still line the Aire’s side, huge, red With rust, they stand by the Council’s Transpennine Trail opposite the bricked and boarded up Hunslet Mills with trees growing from its top storey, roofless, Open to the enormous skies of our childhood. The […]...
- Bridge-Guard in the Karroo 1901 “. . . and will supply details to guard the Blood River Bridge.” District Orders-Lines of Communication, South African War. Sudden the desert changes, The raw glare softens and clings, Till the aching Oudtshoorn ranges Stand up like the thrones of Kings Ramparts of slaughter and peril Blazing, amazing, aglow ‘Twixt the sky-line’s belting […]...
- On Prayer You ask me how to pray to someone who is not. All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard, Above landscapes the color of ripe gold Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun. That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal Where […]...
- Picture-Books in Winter Summer fading, winter comes Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs, Window robins, winter rooks, And the picture story-books. Water now is turned to stone Nurse and I can walk upon; Still we find the flowing brooks In the picture story-books. All the pretty things put by, Wait upon the children’s eye, Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks, […]...
- To Brooklyn Bridge How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest The seagull’s wings shall dip and pivot him, Shedding white rings of tumult, building high Over the chained bay waters Liberty Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes As apparitional as sails that cross Some page of figures to be filed away; Till elevators drop us from […]...
- Iron GUNS, Long, steel guns, Pointed from the war ships In the name of the war god. Straight, shining, polished guns, Clambered over with jackies in white blouses, Glory of tan faces, tousled hair, white teeth, Laughing lithe jackies in white blouses, Sitting on the guns singing war songs, war chanties. Shovels, Broad, iron shovels, Scooping […]...
- The Iron Wedding Rings In these days of peace and money, free to all the Commonweal, There are ancient dames in Buckland wearing wedding rings of steel; Wedding rings of steel and iron, worn on wrinkled hands and old, And the wearers would not give them, not for youth nor wealth untold. In the days of black oppression, when […]...
- Lion In An Iron Cage Look at the lion in the iron cage, Look deep into his eyes: like two naked steel daggers they sparkle with anger. But he never loses his dignity although his anger comes and goes goes and comes. You couldn’t find a place for a collar Round his thick, furry mane. Although the scars of a […]...
- The Iron Age HOW came this pigmy rabble spun, After the gods and kings of old, Upon a tapestry begun With threads of silver and of gold? In heaven began the heroic tale What meaner destinies prevail! They wove about the antique brow A circlet of the heavenly air. To whom is due such reverence now, The thought […]...
- Bridge Over The Aire Book 2 STANDING IN EDEN 1 Poetry claimed me young on Skegness beach Before I was born I answered her cry For a lost child still in the womb still As the seawave journeying green upon green Swollen in my mother’s side lashed and Tongue-tied on a raft of premonition Trying to survive my birth as the […]...
- Blue Bridge Praise the good-tempered summer And the red cardinal That jumps Like a hot coal off the track. Praise the heavy leaves, Heroines of green, frosted With silver. Praise the litter Of torn paper, mulch And sticks, the spiny holly, Its scarlet land mines. Praise the black snake that whips And shudders its way across my […]...
- Fridolin (The Walk To The Iron Factory) A gentle was Fridolin, And he his mistress dear, Savern’s fair Countess, honored in All truth and godly fear. She was so meek, and, ah! so good! Yet each wish of her wayward mood, He would have studied to fulfil, To please his God, with earnest will. From the first hour when daylight shone Till […]...
- The Truth the Dead Know For my Mother, born March 1902, died March 1959 And my Father, born February 1900, died June 1959 Gone, I say and walk from church, Refusing the stiff procession to the grave, Letting the dead ride alone in the hearse. It is June. I am tired of being brave. We drive to the Cape. I […]...
- The Angel's Kiss An angel stood beside the bed Where lay the living and the dead. He gave the mother her who died A kiss that Christ the Crucified Had sent to greet the weary soul When, worn and faint, it reached its goal. He gave the infant kisses twain, One on the breast, one on the brain. […]...
- Our Eyes Our eyes are limpid drops of water. In each drop exists a tiny sign of our genius Which has given life to cold iron. Our eyes are limpid drops of water Merged absolutely in the Ocean That you could hardly recognize the drop in a block of ice in a boiling pan. The masterpiece of […]...
- Puritans Sidling upon the river, the white boat Has volleyed with its cannon all the morning, Shaken the shore towns like a Judgment warning, Telling the palsied water its demand That the crime come to the top again, and float, That the sunk murder rise to the light and land. Blam! In the noon’s perfected brilliance […]...
- Japan Today I pass the time reading A favorite haiku, Saying the few words over and over. It feels like eating The same small, perfect grape Again and again. I walk through the house reciting it And leave its letters falling Through the air of every room. I stand by the big silence of the piano […]...
- Bridge Over The Aire Book 6 THE WALK TO THE PARADISE GARDENS 1 Bonfire Night beckoned us to the bridge By Saint Hilda’s where we started down Knostrop to chump but I trailed behind With Margaret when it was late September The song of summer ceased and fires in Blackleaded grates began and we were Hidden from the others by the […]...
- Invitation To Miss Marianne Moore From Brooklyn, over the Brooklyn Bridge, on this fine morning, please come flying. In a cloud of fiery pale chemicals, please come flying, To the rapid rolling of thousands of small blue drums Descending out of the mackerel sky Over the glittering grandstand of harbor-water, please come flying. Whistles, pennants and smoke are blowing. The […]...
- The Bridge of Sighs One more Unfortunate, Weary of breath, Rashly importunate, Gone to her death! Take her up tenderly, Lift her with care; Fashion’d so slenderly Young, and so fair! Look at her garments Clinging like cerements; Whilst the wave constantly Drips from her clothing; Take her up instantly, Loving, not loathing. Touch her not scornfully; Think of […]...
- Bridge Over The Aire Book 4 THE LANDS OF MY CHILDHOOD 1 I am leaving the holy city of Leeds For the last time for the first time Leaded domes of minarets in Kirkgate Market, the onion-dome of Ellerby Lane School, the lands of my childhood empty Or gone. Market stalls under wrought Iron balconies strewn with roses and Green imitation […]...
- London Bridge “Do I hear them? Yes, I hear the children singing-and what of it? Have you come with eyes afire to find me now and ask me that? If I were not their father and if you were not their mother, We might believe they made a noise…. What are you-driving at!” “Well, be glad that […]...
- Jim Never knew Jim, did you? Our boy Jim? Bless you, there was the likely lad; Supple and straight and long of limb, Clean as a whistle, and just as glad. Always laughing, wasn’t he, dad? Joy, pure joy to the heart of him, And, oh, but the soothering ways he had, Jim, our Jim! But […]...
- Song of the Wise Children 1902 When the darkened Fifties dip to the North, And frost and the fog divide the air, And the day is dead at his breaking-forth, Sirs, it is bitter beneath the Bear! Far to Southward they wheel and glance, The million molten spears of morn The spears of our deliverance That shine on the house […]...
- Bridge Over The Aire Book 1 AGAINST THE GRAIN “Oxford be silent, I this truth must write Leeds hath for rarities undone thee quite.” – William Dawson of Hackney, Nov.7th 1704 “The repressed becomes the poem” Louise Bogan 1 Well it’s Friday the thirteenth So I’d better begin with luck As I prepare for a journey to The north, the place […]...
- The Man from Iron Bark It was the man from Ironbark who struck the Sydney town, He wandered over street and park, he wandered up and down. He loitered here he loitered there, till he was like to drop, Until at last in sheer despair he sought a barber’s shop. “Ere! shave my beard and whiskers off, I’ll be a […]...
- Bridge Over The Aire Book 3 THE KINGDOM OF MY HEART 1 The halcyon settled on the Aire of our days Kingfisher-blue it broke my heart in two Shall I forget you? Shall I forget you? I am the mad poet first love You never got over You are my blue-eyed Madonna virgin bride I shall carve ‘MG loves BT’ On […]...
- Bat At evening, sitting on this terrace, When the sun from the west, beyond Pisa, beyond the mountains of Carrara Departs, and the world is taken by surprise… When the tired flower of Florence is in gloom beneath the glowing Brown hills surrounding… When under the arches of the Ponte Vecchio A green light enters against […]...
- Mercian Hymns I King of the perennial holly-groves, the riven sandstone: overlord of the M5: architect of the historic rampart and ditch, the citadel at Tamworth, the summer hermitage in Holy Cross: guardian of the Welsh Bridge and the Iron Bridge: contractor to the desirable new estates: Saltmaster: money-changer: commissioner for oaths: martyrologist: the Friend of Charlemagne. ‘I […]...