Bridge

Image: Scotch College crews in training on the Yarra

 at Walmer Street Bridge, between Kew and Abbotsford.

 

good morning

merri creek bridge

taking the north-east to work

where the medium-rises meet the renos

where the wattles meet their reflections

minds suffused with corded sounds

delineate the rooftop bricolage

blue hills and grey-white clouds

all the senses and scents

where starts and ends meet

skin fresh from the shower

 

good afternoon

walmer street bridge

the vineyard dozing in colour

scotch rowers loud hailered to scull

a madcap cyclist testing the limits

of walkers’ personal space

curving concrete and rattling planks

consecutively past

apartments inscrutable as their residents

and the merry clangs of trams

 

good evening

montague street bridge

scalper of vans

hard halt to the blind

not so fast is your bypass byword

another week another wreck

danger low brow

nemesis of buses

how many warning signs are needed

for an accident waiting to happen

trasher of trucks flashing news

of the latest statistical mishap

idle pastime of innocent bystanders

reading the prang on their phone

with a good-humoured groan

 

good night

princes bridge

concert goers leaving mahler

convert goths nibbling snickers

midweek diners walking off shiraz

midlife donors talking ten the doz

sporting fans left thrilled or glum

sparring friends just out for the fun

buskers hulking drums lead and bass

late night lawyers lost in a case

condo dwellers their constitutional

tied besuiteds looking institutional

pizza scooters skirting the kerb

puzzled punters employing a verb

addled students with intense frown

uber stood-ups wanting out of town

olds hand-in-hand youth hand-in-hand

another tram and another tram

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.

Bridge

 The clamour at train stops where hundreds take

Harbour by numbers as carriages climb.

Ferries in overdrive bisect the time,

Deep blue and pale blue stripes black girders make.

Apartments populate landfall hillsides

Between crisscrosses: islands and beaches,

Nautilus landmarks, yachts’ closest reaches

Brilliant in day haze, extravagant pride.

The bridge glides by into spraycan cuttings

Inscribed in vision its inkblack station

In life (not a fast fitting out of joint)

A signature above the line point-to-point,

Dated at permanent occupation,

Firm flourish with the owners’ air jutting.

Bridge (February)

Julius Caesar, when not crossing the Rubicon, was burning bridges behind him. General Montgomery planned a capture of wartime bridges that overreached itself, “a bridge too far” being a favourite expression of Kevin Rudd: “John Howard has gone a bridge too far by not going far enough.” Neither man exactly pontifex maximus. This February, scandals involving a Deputy Prime Minister threaten government stability: “There will be bridges that need to be built between colleagues after this is over and I don’t want to burn them before we start,” one Liberal said, fortunately wearing the garment called the cloak of anonymity.