The Bridge to Memory

By Celeste Regal

On the bridge, streams of vehicles go on and on. Unable to acknowledge a capped river below, the silky draw of memory closes. There is no time for anything of substance. Love is in the minute, the seconds tick on your sweet song of being. Mechanical necessities engulf the endless march toward paycheck. The continual gathering of children, bleached in the haphazard of topic after topic, have no urge to learn. The noise is terminal. The insects jump at incessant turbulence. Everyone is on the make. There is no corner to stand on as the entire populous munches on the consumer train of tidings. They picnic in large numbers, musical taste battling each other. Talk rarely stops to sleep.

Some of us, though, languidly move through time and space. We learned this by other waters, lakes on the hand, north and then west into the rural. Big university splayed across the land feeding the minds of the misinformed. Love feasted on our young bodies, disjointed, unable to make it all work. What a time it was. Everything is possible on sugar mountain with the barkers and the colored balloons. Boundaries broke, desire unsatisfied but the girl tasted a life she had never known. Their reaction to ravenous appetite left them wounded, angry. Off she went to see more, devour more. The hunger is insatiable. Forever is the consciousness of ingesting.

Toward the end of the line, a pang for that closeness rattled emerging artistry, too long buried beneath protection. All that violence is useful now. All the wanting is the catalyst for depth. It cannot be reduced to this or that. Meaning supplanted hazards with understanding and if we are not about understanding we are about destroying. Forgiveness is a tool to damn the unanointed. Clasping the hand of the other is a necessity now and forever. Embrace said wrongs and all will be well. Cross that bridge to faulty memory and live in this second. Take the water of return.