Words On A Bridge

Words On A Bridge

I remember reading about a Parisian bridge,
the Pont des Arts,
sagging beneath the weight
of padlocked pledges,
her barnacled palisades 
dipping to drink from the Seine.

This bridge here, a lesser cousin,
sun lighting on her slender nape,
is festooned with words,
the variable lines of scribes
in marker and pen.
Amidst the patchwork
of diatribe and devotion,
my eye is drawn to a post-it note,
stuck dead centre:

poetry is when 
the language of the soul
escapes into 
the common tongue


I thought it pretentious.

I moved on to read the other lines,
but my eyes kept returning 
to that fading, yellow slip,
a stanza of disparity
surrounded by stiff banalities
and wilting vulgarities.

poetry is when
the language of the soul
escapes into
the common tongue


Just who was the bard of this bridge,
paying a toll in words
of thrift?

I fished out a pen, then,
suddenly aware of an approaching woman,
plunged it back
into the sanctuary of my pocket.
But, nailing me with a half-cocked smile,
she uttered a single word
as she passed me by:
"Contribute."


I imagined her then the poetess, 
both collaborator and muse,
planting a seed and moving on,
the hem of her trench coat 
flapping around her legs
in the river wind.


©Andrew James Murray