Bridges

I am rather taken with the building of bridges;

particularly those humongous constructions

that reach out from opposing sides

to meet, by design and artifice, in the middle.

And I laud the engineers and artisans

who make it happen.

The bridges I am tasked to build

are more challenging (or so it seems)

since they are meant to span

the vertiginous chasms and ravines

between Thee and Me.

Small wonder most collapse before they're finished.

I reach out into wind-swept emptiness

and call to my neighbour opposite

to reach out

and to meet me halfway,

that we might share a tale or two

about life and the point of it.

Would that the bridge we build

be made of stronger stuff;

of high-tensile fibre and girders

forged in the red-hot furnace of our hearts,

and tempered in the ice-cold waters

of a real world.

How amazed are we, on occasion rare,

when we find ourselves mid-span and together,

peering into roaring depths below

and humbled that we,

with conjoined intent and effort

made Me and Thee into the mighty span of We.

© Karel Reus