Painting the Bridge - Dec 18 2023

 

Painting the Bridge

Dec 18 2023

They never finish painting the bridge.

The unforgiving weather

and sharp salt air

work away at it.

Rust,

consuming its steel

and sapping its strength;

an invisible fire

smouldering under the skin.

So when one end is done

they begin at the other

then circle back again.

The forces of decay

that will turn us all to dust.

Which even steel can't resist,

let alone

flesh and blood.

Always there, as I pass,

dark specks

high overhead

framed against the sky.

They are tightrope walkers,

toeing the line of its rails,

straddling the cables

of thickly braided wire.

Working men,

who balance on scaffolds

and dangle from ropes,

shimmy-up its massive piles.

A steady wage,

and just another day at work.

The bridge

sways in the wind

contracts in the cold.

If only I were so supple.

If only a coat of paint

could hold off old age

and make me new again.

But this, of course, is impossible;

the battle against decay

is a constant one

and always lost.

A new bridge

that's bigger and better

will replace the old,

a new generation

take my place.

Like the men

beavering away on the high steel,

beginnings and ends

all at once.