Looking for the Charles Bridge

the one among all the others

Looking for the Charles Bridge

The saints are waiting. Arms aloft, loyal as kingfishers. 
Ignore the dust, forget this insomniac’s plight. 
Winter is leaving just in time. 
 
Walk the city: early and alone, crossing cobbled mosaics 
to practice clumsy Dobrý dens on anonymous dogs and  
cats yawning wide behind rippled panes of glass. 

Undo boredom’s rank disbelief: stand quietly 
and long enough to watch those merciful hands 
of the astronomical clock still turning stars into days. 

Look for the bridge, the one among all the others — 
the ones that could do, but will not do. Keep looking
until the bronze-black eyes of St. Ivo can at last be seen

in mid-dawn's sepia gaze. This hour—a wet picture—
floating in the darkroom’s bath, covered in newborn gloss. 
Waiting to be lifted. Ready to become.

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The Charles Bridge - Prague, Czech Republic. Photo by Ryan Lum

Thank you for being here. Your readership is invaluable to me.

{|AC

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