Beneath the Bridge

The dead shepherd. The little river. The fields.
The cities. The hills of the world. Those that sleep
on the hills. Those that drink from the river.

Nightly I kneeled by that river when I lived in the city,
thought some ballad singer had sung it all
and each nocturnal note rhymed into the ground,
rhymed into the dark sarcophagus of sound.

It's only now that I realize I was wrong.
How often I was when I lived in the city.

Once in the shadow of an old bridge
I met a gravedigger who had not heard this river.

He did not know where his family had gone.

He said: the radio of eternity begins anew
when each of us are born and ends each time
we look to the sky and think to sing along.

Copyright © 2007 Adam Clay All rights reserved
from The Wash
Parlor Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission