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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Last updated:

• 2004-11-06