James Dickey




Meadow Bridge

           There might be working some kind of throwaway

                              Meditation on Being, just
                             From what I am looking at
Right here. I can’t tell, myself. But it may already have happened
                        When I batted my eye —

                                                                 a new fix

                     Of sun lined out, squaring off: a fresh
                               Steel bridge,
                                                   exactly true
                               To a crosscut of starkness
                       And silver.
                                        Tell me: why do I want
                     To put over it, the right hand drawing

             Inexhaustibly drawing
                                                 out of the left, a vibration

                          Of threads? This also, beholders,
                                       Is a fact, gauze
Burns off,
                keeps coming: the bridge breaks through anything
   I can pull from my hand. No matter how I brim, there is

                                    No softening.

                                 Field, what hope?