From the Brooklyn Side

From the Brooklyn Side

The dusk climbed behind me

as motorists and pedestrians

moved steadily west and east

across the Williamsburg Bridge.

They traversed the grey steel,

above the flood and ebb-tides,

in a ritual as old as the city.

Below, the East River roiled;

a rough mix from the tail waters

of Harlem and the Bronx Kill.

From the apex of the bridge

I watched the sun burn down

the Manhattan skyline and

slowly drown in the Hudson.

I recalled the Whitman poem

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

and felt the ties between us.  

In the distance, the gray walls

of granite and glass loomed;

today, as they will tomorrow,

and a hundred years hence.

SMG