Forgotten Bridge

(Found here)

I leave my car in the unplowed snow at the end of Lattice Bridge

Road, cross the guardrail barricade, and venture onto the deck.
Rectangles of plywood have been set over weak spots. A section,

big as the shadow of a pick-up, is simply gone.

Snowy arches rise overhead mirroring the naked limbs of trees
along the shore, each with its own sleeve of snow, its manacles of
ice — each tree defying the toppling sheer of winter wind, dignified

in its ordinary struggles, graced by new snow.

Early sun that slants through the trees, lighting up the snowy

lattice, does not touch the water.

Because I cannot search the face of God, I have come to search His

voice. I am not the first. The prints of birds and foraging animals

track the decking like small complaints. Who is to say what we

seek? Who is to say what advantage the bridge will lend?

Without having ever imagined your grief, I find myself overcome.
For this, too, no language suffices.

But here: the voices of dark water, soothing, unintelligible,

and the voices of light in the snow along tree limb and scaffold,

lining rushes, capping cattails and teasel.

~James Zoller