I wrote the following poem, “The Bridge”, in 1985, while pursuing my MA at the University of Texas at Dallas. If you know the poetry of W. S. Merwin, you will easily recognize his influence in this poem. Merwin is deceptively easy for a young poet to imitate. My immature homage is all surface, yet I enjoyed writing it and seeing it published in the school’s creative writing journal. The third to last line is an interesting foreshadowing of my eventual conversion to Catholicism (I was agnostic at the time). After “finding religion”, I set Merwin aside for many years. His liberal environmentalism clashed (in my mind) with my religious conservatism. That has been my loss. Lately I’ve rediscovered Merwin, and I’m happy to see that his Collected Poems are due to be published by the Library of America in May.
The Bridge
Now that we’ve learned
everything
who will be there to teach us
how to walk
when each of us is standing
alone
at the end of a long sigh
spanning its own
empty length across
emptiness
like a bridge woven from the shadows
of a blind procession
Behind us
the tracings of our steps in ash
have long vanished
ahead
is a dry month
the dark wind the voices falling
into the desert of words where the bones are forming
descriptions of silence
So
this must be nothingness
and being
not quite what we expected
it is
the perfect image of ourselves
And we are reminded
of distance
with its impossible origins
setting out from us like the queries of children
answered in a language
not ours
not even of syllable
or diction not
after a lifetime of crossing
over to that rest
where loneliness is noted on numberless calendars
© 1985 David A. Welch
