The Bridge

Beringia called and you responded, but I was to go first
I hoped to hear the landscape moan, join the ancient song

Nellie Chinik won your heart and had you digging her potatoes
then cast her spell and offered you an amaryllis in exchange

“Fully occupied with growing--that's
the amaryllis... If we could blossom
out of ourselves, giving
nothing imperfect, withholding nothing!”

You wished to know your own edges again
and saw them past your feet overlooking the bay

Fey morning, window darkness
Golovin lay, this side of the changeling a
Fata Morgana, dancing between a rock and a hard dawn illusion
or the illusion, set to conspiring from a hard drawn conclusion

“If humans could be
that intensely whole, undistracted, unhurried,
swift from sheer
unswerving impetus!”

The chilled horseman’s star-ship? Nay.

It was the mammoth in the living room
who moaned from the distance
of bridges passed




The cuttings are from "The Métier of Blossoming" by Denise Levertov. Enjoy the entire poem from Poets.org

Also, a reference for a mirage known as a Fata Morgana from Wikipedia