Amalgamate: It is Fair to Be Crossing

A post from July 2007, 


Over the weekend (in July, 2007) I had the pleasure of stolling about the Walker Art Center's Lawn, Loring Park and over the Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge that connects the two.

As a friend and I strolled along, enjoying the moments of our day, we noticed a running poem in bronze across the top of the bridge. The poem begins on each end of the bridge on opposite sides, ending about the middle of the bridge. 

A poem by John Ashbery commissioned specifically for this bridge:

And now I cannot remember
How I would have had it.
It is not a conduit (confluence?)
But a place.
The place, of movement and an order.
The place of old order.
But the tail end of the movement is new,
Driving us to say what we are thinking.
It is so much like a beach after all
Where you stand and think of going no further.
And it is good when you get to no further.
It is like a reason that picks you up
And places you where you always wanted
To be.
This far.
It is fair to be crossing, to have crossed.
Then there is no promise in the other.
Here it is.
Steel and air, a mottled presence,
Small panacea and lucky for us.
And then it got very cool.


As my friend and I finished reading the poem aloud with one another, a sigh of refreshness rested upon us. Exactly what we needed to hear, to be, to see.