River Cinquains

water                                       secrets
ever bending                              untold stories
discovers the ocean                    ducking behind corners
delivers the distant mountain          hiding beyond the horizons
water                                       secrets


river                                         journey
slowly turning                             stretching travel
reveals only ripples                     to a destination
of its whitewater history                left to the imagination
river                                         journey


                     bridges
                    river crossings
                   giving me perspective
                   over the ever-bending water
                   bridges

Bridge Sonnet

Each road’s another story:  paved or gravel-
Roughed or leveled, mud or dirt,
always life extending ridge to ridge;
Down one of them I came upon a bridge
Across a valley’s hidden hurt,
of bolted metal topped with graded gravel
Stretched from bank to bank across a river.
If not for journeys of my own
I would take time to learn the river’s song,
The something pushing pulling it along;
instead I turn to what is known:
The road that takes my path across the river.

God grant me all the power I have to travel
through the shadows of each vale,
Look after me God, bless my soul, deliver
My heart my weary way from ridge to ridge
and road to road, and with each tale to tell
Apply me steadfast to the grinding gravel
But lead me not into the mystic river
of unknown sources heavened or helled
And let me walk instead across this bridge.

Crossing Quatrains

How long will this river flow
the country’s culminated streams
connecting unseen mountain sources
    to the ocean,
bringing dreams to distant dreams?

How long will the water run
beneath this road turned into bridge,
    beneath the feet
of all who pass from bank to bank
half grateful for this lifted street?

How long will this stretch of street
    in time remain
suspended shore to shifting shore
above the rise and sink of seasons,
of mountain trickle and ocean roar?

    This river will
outlast us, all our lives combined
and every street along the way,
and even as I form these words,
I feel the bridge begin to sway.

This bolted iron in the wind
is likely to outlast us too;
we may grow old together, but
if time’s the measure we cannot do
    what bridges do.