Everywhere you look there are
bridges, spans, ancient and new.
Connections from somewhere,
to somewhere with an intermediate
transverse from having been there,
to being there, a slog, a trip, or a
simple uncomplicated, happenstance,
a foot tread over a void of space.
We trust our bridges believing they will
support us and others on our travels,
but, whether conscious or not,
there is always a gnawing doubt of fear .
Stepping out on a native vine laced
thread across a chasm of jungle,
motoring over asphalt, encased in steel
with rolling waves beneath us,
it is all the same, trust, belief.
Given the movements of earth and time,
why is it that we give our lives
so easily to such fragile designs?
We become tightrope walkers on perilous
dew dropped spider web suspensions,
no safety net below or on either side,
In calculations and plans, as in life,
we tempt fate whose fickle finger may
casually brush us away with a gentle breeze
as it does a spiders artful creation.
©2013, Donald Harbour
Donald Harbour Poetry 
Excellent, Donald. Truly. I love “dew dropped spider web suspensions” – that’s such a wonderfully descriptive phrase. Thank you for joining in on this prompt. A new one is coming on Thursday, so I hope that you’ll join us again at We Write Poems.
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This is a lovely, thoughtful poem. It never occurred to me that it needed confidence and faith to cross a bridge until I ventured to cross the wire slung across the river Ness in Glen Nevis, with two more wires to hold on by. Then I knew real fear and trembling.
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I like the idea behind this poem Don and you carry it off most effectively. All those bridges … So tangible … And such a persuasive metaphor.
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Thank you John for your observation of this poem. I am always fascinated by the number of people who read a poem and do not understand the meaning. I love metaphors, do not always carry it of but find a great joy in those that get it.
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