Photograph by Photo by Dartmouth News photographer, Eli Burakian ’00
Under Ledyard Bridge
I looked up from the path that winds
close to the black water
that flows South under a skin
of ice, too thin for skaters,
too thick for winter ducks
to bob for food. Here, I was cut off
from the world above the bank,
my view diminished–portions
of the park, boathouse, the tunnel
beneath the railroad tracks,
inlet from the nearby brook
gone, as if they’d disappeared
the way they will when dams
cannot hold back what threatens,
the way Sargent once pictured Venice
from under the looming arc
of the Rialto Bridge, gondolas, rows of houses
swallowed by shadow, the way loss comes.
I looked up from the path that winds
close to the black water
that flows South under a skin
of ice, too thin for skaters,
too thick for winter ducks
to bob for food. Here, I was cut off
from the world above the bank,
my view diminished–portions
of the park, boathouse, the tunnel
beneath the railroad tracks,
inlet from the nearby brook
gone, as if they’d disappeared
the way they will when dams
cannot hold back what threatens,
the way Sargent once pictured Venice
from under the looming arc
of the Rialto Bridge, gondolas, rows of houses
swallowed by shadow, the way loss comes.