Canticle For A Bridge - Poem by Ranjit Hoskote

A waver in the glass.
Heliotrope petals on the river.
He touches her drawings again.

Ten years have passed
since the bridge-builder buried his bride.
His spans are silent as rock.

but the waters echo
with the flapping of a thousand wings.
Speak to me, he says,

in one tongue only.