Tears slip off a bridge somewhere
I remember when its tracks weren't lost
- But that was sometime ago now.
A train rushed over fragile wooden beams
And buckled off an endless track
Lives slipped off the bridge
And sank like any other pebble
But that was sometime.
Now I stand on the first rail track
As if to walk,
Like many things it remains cut-off
- Only a few yards across
Some tracks are lost
But that was sometime.
A faint child waves on another side
- Will I have faith to jump
Before she should slip like me?
No -
We will fall, and fall together.
A train rumbles
But this time in ghost white
It runs me down inside
- Now tears drip as the gap widens.
FIRE 22, p 75; Malcolm Hayden-Smith