Bridge

 

Beside the river, below the bridge, is Studley Park Vineyard. Autumn has got hold of the vineyard, just as it changes the surrounding trees. A few times a week now I walk the length of the bridge, its walkway above the vineyard, to and from work. And one thing about a narrow footbridge is I see everyone’s faces, close up for passing seconds. I give thanks for each person in their being who crosses the bridge, more real than myriad fleeting faces on computer screens of daily life. Only, what to divine from their features? What labyrinth of thought goes on behind their well-washed appearances? The schoolboy with earnest aspect, what causes this overall effect? Homework? A workman unsmiling, one senses from his benign eye he longs for a smile. Or then this sensitive woman on her way to … the office? What’s uppermost in her world? The diversity of beings scarcely glance to the vineyard below. For many a topmost concern is cyclists, being hit by one at uppermost speed, and then what? That intense chap seems to be rehearsing his lecture to the cyclist before it happens. Or perhaps he’s walking off a hangover. Cyclists have no time for the vineyard, their mercurial helmets pointed at city destinations; neither for the brown river, antithesis of speed that today gives no impression of flowing. How to decipher the universe of the couple and their dog trudging unremittingly towards the Yarra Trail? Is that happy trudging? or some ultimate trial?, asks the second glance. Some stare at the ground. The bridge simply joins one world with another. All I can do is look at each person passing with an ancient wonder, as colours fall and currents get a slow move on. What thousand nights and a night could find voice from the aging woman going shopping, one step at a time? And what hell has that severe face stepped from, or is he just nervous about random cyclists who won’t change gears? Meanwhile, an angel is near at hand, cheered by autumn and brim with celestial information. Another one unawares is trying to find the weather updates on their phone, agitated habit of a lifetime. Why worry? Two friends of inquisitive mien discuss business in tranquil Vietnamese. I wonder where they are going: will their endeavours prove fruitful? A university student tries on the day, her knowledgeable face questioning the day moon. And why apartments? Another has his ear plugged to The National (I guess, expression-wise) on permanent loop. Composed, heads full of errands nod briskly towards each other’s humanity. Yellow signs declare pedestrian right-of-way but bridge walkers wait, playing out their crude etiquette, as more cyclists dash through. Crossing the bridge resumes again, all manner of walks, brisk and leisurely, between one world and another, their faces staying in the mind.