Span (2)

Such a gap, they said, is impossible to span.

They said: the sky separating your endpoints

is too wide. They said: the soft clay tops

of the mesas you’ve picked will crumble under

the weight of the equipment needed alone! Best

not even to attempt it, best to remember it’s far

too far to go with no good place to anchor

your piers.

I laughed. The sky, the gap, the mesas themselves

demanded the bridge be built, demanded

with the way they oriented to each other,

demanded with the way they silently

filled the space between them, demanded in

every moment they passed through under

the objective sun.

And staring at the gap, I could

see the road deck begin to coalesce, could see

its iron triangles, could see their manufacture,

could see the mining of their ore, could see the flow

that laid those veins of ore, could see that it

was meant to be harvested, meant to bridge this

particular gap, meant to become the span

that these two mesas needed.

--RFRY, 24 Jun 06

This is a version of Span (2).