Iron Bridge Poem by Barry Middleton

As a curious youth I roamed far and wide in the wooded hills.
Each passing year my circle widened to new discovery,
from backyard and cow barn, to apple orchard, past local mysteries.
Past moss and windfall in the prehistoric landscape of fern, trillium and cane.
Past the rivulet at the backside of the family farm.
Our little brook ran into Short Creek just before it merged with the muddy river.
I knew by intuition there was discovery upstream a ways, around another bend, just hidden from reach.
Late at night, when the world was dead quiet, I could hear a clue, the oak plank rattle of the old iron bridge.
The rumbling sound was a waking dream, unfulfilled, beckoning, a destination, and a conquest.
Childhood overflows with seductive riddles and circuitous journey, too much to unravel in a day or a year or years of searching.
I took on the challenges one by one till my father gave directions.
Cross the old dirt road and head to the sunrise along the pipeline cut.
Cross the next branch, turn south on the trail at the lightning scarred oak, another mile on the ridge and you will come to a graded gravel road.
The bridge was to my right.
Scant traffic there, it took effort in the hills, just to find the place, most would not bother.
There was a green hardwood valley, trees powdered with road dust in summer drought, a common scene in those parts, rusty truss work,
gray weathered plank for the deck above the pristine waters of the rippling creek.
Up the hill - Short Creek Church, white clapboard and picnic tables, slumbered on a lawn beneath giant oaks.
There was quiet beauty there, uncommon silence, attentive wilderness, a snapshot of serenity.
Sometimes you have to search, sometimes you have to wait. Sometimes all that remains is a memory and a lesson in patience.