The Bridge Poem by Leo Yankevich

Petalled with rust beneath a sky of slag,
the bridge expands into infinite haze.
Below it, the meaning of all my days:
thistled lots, brambled voids where time lags

oblivious to the maimed and forgotten.
My eyes sink in their vision: flocks of crows,
torrents of black water, flapping shadows
over tawny fields in endless autumn…

On the bridge, wasting bad time, I’d shed tears,
but have no regrets, only old ironies,
black insect prayers that cannot break my fall.

I’d appeal my sentence, seek solace from seers,
but the child in me knows: beyond destinies
light is everywhere, and redeems us all.