If I Should Die
Beneath Astrid Sky
The newly-clad path led past the
hill.
It turned I turned, for want of
will.
And through a scrub and hawthorn
glade
I came beneath its dusty shade.
In scale it rose on mighty limb,
some giant children’s giant sim
of steel, cement and buttressed iron.
It echoed back the all-clear
siren.
Over water and sloping land,
in century last it came to stand.
A gateway to our once fair city,
it rose for love; it rose for
pity.
(Some say by pride a mountain
bowed
and rainbows split, disturbing
cloud.
I say the sky seemed lower then;
the past seemed then a simpler
when.)
It took its name from a distant
world
as skyward rose, its road
unfurled.
Pylon to ribbon, the time it flew
till oldest old was made anew.
Like most I rode this mighty way
where steel licked cloud upon the
day.
Like most I feathered and grew
wing
to soar the sky, with birds to
sing.
And like a ribbon topped a gift
that God had given—our eyes lift
at dawn, as sun’s rays set to
gleaming;
at night, when car lights set to
streaming.
The Astrid Sky did welcome all.
And all who came here heard its
call.
By such a bridge we were to say:
How rich a life is here today!
And to our city came the grandest
grands
along Astrid’s way from far-way
lands.
And ring-tipped fingers drove
cars of air,
along fair Astrid’s golden stair.
And all was is, and as it would,
till chilling wind and ancient
Should
brought cracks to tar and gave
steel fires,
ending ways of our desires.
O, it’s not so much so much went
wrong,
it’s just so much that went
along.
And Time—in time—it came around
to dead our time, without a
sound.
Our city cracked, the lands grew
bare.
And seas did slime and stale the
air.
And things unwound beneath a sun
too hot to glade our rabbit run.
...
Now here by a rusted
paint-flecked post,
a giant’s finger, an iron ghost
of a bridge shorn of land and
water;
a bridge once made of a muted
matter.
The final curtain draws to its
close,
and a final roaring—such like!—rose...
And if I die beneath the Astrid
Sky,
bury me where the rough stars
lie!
OKAY, I WROTE THIS SEVERAL YEARS AGO, and I
must have been tripping or something. I think there was an astronomical event
going on—perhaps meteor showers from the Astrid belt region of our solar
system. It was a few years ago, so I’m not sure. The name is from Old Norse meaning “divine strength, or
divine beauty”. Reading through it, I’m struck by the sense of hubris evident in the building and use
of this giant causeway or bridge that is the showpiece for the unnamed city
(Every City, I suppose). I think I capture this dangerous sense of pride with
such images as “ring-tipped fingers drove cars of air” and the bridge as “God’s
gift” with ribbons—like it was some giant birthday present or something, or
when the speaker says they “grew wings to soar the sky”. (Icarus, anyone?) The bridge’s name suggests a sense of overweening
pride on the part of the builders, like bragging the Titanic is
‘unsinkable’ or something (“Near, far, wherever you are/I believe that the
heart does, go on/ Once more you open the door…” ugh! Stop! My gag reflex kicks in about here. Sorry if there are
any Celine Dion fans in the audience.) The builders fail to consider that
asteroids fall to Earth from time to time, in the form of meteor showers; falling being the operative word.
I was a little surprised at the harsh
environmental imagery that comes upon the scene in the later stanzas. And though
the bridge itself was made some time ago in the “the century last”, I almost
get a ‘Buck Rogers’ futuristic vibe to the whole scene, or something out of the
classic 1936 SiFi movie, Things
to Come, with all those giant, glass towers and elevated roadways, and
'flying cars' and things. [Actually, the movie is a horrible, and frankly
totalitarian, imagined future of so-called technological 'progress', and one I
want no part of!] So, is this a bridge from today, or one that is yet to be
built?
I like the fact the speaker has seen the
rise and fall of the bridge (along with the city, the region, perhaps the whole
world) and now reflects on the folly of its construction and the blind, mad
lives they once led. The speaker has returned, over a landscape that is
gradually re-wilding, to die amid the bridge's ruins, though he says he has
followed the path there “…for want of will”. Has he come there reluctantly? Was
he forced to return for some reason? He may die there, but he says he wants to
be buried where “the rough stars lie.” He does not to want to be buried under the bridge. Then where? And what are
"rough stars", and where do they lie, anyway? These are questions
I’ll leave for the one or two readers who chance upon this poem, perhaps
beneath their own bridge of dreams.
Finally, the impending war or disaster (a
“final roaring”) that the speaker hints at echoes the introductory stanza with
its “all-clear siren”. It tells us this is a time when conflict and chaos are
never far from the lives of people, at least as imagined in this strange little
world I seemed to have made up out of shooting stars.
Cheers, Jake.