Long buried embers
still smoulder,
here in this frozen night.
Owing to the fortitude
of the construction
and the labours spent therein.
Didn’t think they’d still be burning,
even after all these years,
but it seems that I
build bonds to burn a lifetime.
It goes to show
what I invest.
Never think that hatred
is the reason for the end.
It’s never simple;
love finds ways to set a fire.
The spark is nothing,
if not intentional.
The girders held,
until the heat
condemned them
to buckle and then fall.
A spectacular inferno.
I’m sure you watched it
from afar
and delighted in its brilliance,
never giving thought
to the notion
that some connection
was destroyed
and now
someone must suffer.
Ashes turn to ashes,
dust to dust
and soon some new construct
must begin.
The site of the old bridge
is cleared and prepared
for some new wonder.
As the ruins are cleared away,
decades of neglect and decay
and nature’s emotionless reclamation,
under all the detritus,
we find a hot spot
and a little deeper down;
live coals.
Exposed to air
they glow a fiery red
and gasp,
like a dead thing revived.
How deeply love can slumber,
even severed,
even wounded.
How deeply it must have been driven
into the Earth.
Surely built
to last an eternity.
More incomprehensible then,
the heat of the fire
that must have burned
to render such magnificence
to ash.
Surely a lesser material
would have given up the embers
decades ago.
Take a moment,
and meditate upon the idea
of a master engineer
building bridges
just to burn them.
Maybe with these embers found,
more will be done
to protect these cherished connections.
Meditate on embers
of what once was
and as impressive as they are,
we must extinguish them.
We are building bigger things now.
Time progresses,
as unfeeling as nature.
What’s done is done,
the time comes and goes,
but have a care for your constructs;
for sometimes only in their ashes
do we see the strength
of our foundations.
HG – 2018
