POEM, Peters: The Ravenel Bridge

By Carol Peters, special to Charleston Currents

brings an instant gush of

happiness, this measure of wanting

to live, feeling joy surge at the sight of

a steel bridge, not a shape of nature

like a heron launching into flight

or a pelican sinking like a hull into a wave —

two silver peaks strung from silver wires,

silver ropes against sky

everyone in Mount Pleasant heading

anywhere east every day

catches a glimpse of. How long for how many

before it becomes invisible

as Canada geese, mockingbirds, & crows

become invisible & worse — irritants

for being shits, bullies, & thieves

like the dozen black vultures feeding along Old

Jacksonboro Road. The driver, when I call

her attention to them, says, Oh yeah

they’re all over —

miracles, pterodactyl survivors

like the great blue so sure of its safety

it doesn’t stir when dogs & toddlers pass by.

The feet pulse the bird body forward

— slowest metronome, rhythm, not sound —

then strike, then swallow.

The sleeping gator lies as if it is already

nothing but a dear shoe, not one

you wear for best. Amaryllis sepals

wrinkle their way to release,

the stem a bridge from earth to red flower.

— Carol Peters lives in Mount Pleasant, walks, bike and boats the Lowcountry, and wishes she could live outside. Click to read her books, Muddy Prints, Water Shine & Sixty Some. For more of her poems, visit her blog.