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Rosemary Menzies: The Old Bridge (Mostar)

You will not stand
on the Old Bridge again.
The many many times
have gone.
There’s a wire rope now
loose planks and fear
thirty metres into the air
above the green Neretva.
The symbolism is different now –
the meeting of east and west
a drowned thing, blown apart.
This new taut life line
straddles two broken worlds
and cliffs, bricks, clay
all crumble down the sides
into the green Neretva.
Today in the Square
a clown has come –
a bridge of sorts
to make them laugh;
short-lived, and yet a start
where life hangs on any thread
and the spirit refused to die.
Sept 1994

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Description:

  • Author: Rosemary Menzies, teacher and writer, Auckland, New Zealand
  • Title: The Old Bridge (Mostar), Sept 1994
  • Source: Poems for Bosnia - Pjesme za Bosnu (bilingual), translation from English: Miloš Đurđević
  • Publisher: Author and Illyria Press, New Zealand, 1995

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  • 2004-11-06

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