“over troubled water”
( The Bridge That Didn’t Meet )
One bank sends out its beams first—
thin, deliberate,
measuring the air
as if the river were a problem
that could be solved with angles.
The other bank answers
with heavier timbers,
driven fast,
driven deep,
each strike echoing
like a promise made too loudly.
Midstream, the river waits.
It has seen this before.
Two beginnings,
two certainties,
two sets of hands
building toward a meeting
they haven’t framed.
The beams extend—
slow,
careful,
trembling
under their own intent.
The timbers rush—
urgent,
impatient,
throwing themselves forward
as if speed could erase distance.
For a moment
the two halves almost touch—
a breath’s width,
a fingertip,
a hinge of possibility
hovering above the current.
But the angles misalign.
The timbers overreach.
The river lifts its shoulder
and the gap widens,
a quiet refusal
written in water.
One half stops,
unsure.
The other half keeps building
into empty air,
boards hanging over nothing,
a gesture that looks like hope
from far away
and like denial
from up close.
The workers step back.
The river moves on.
The two unfinished spans
stand facing each other—
not enemies,
not failures,
just structures
whose values
never learned
the same geometry.
Some viewers call it ruin.
Some call it art.
Some see their own story
in the gap.
The river doesn’t choose.
It only carries away
what falls.
.