You feel how good it is,
this earth, sitting on the cool bridge
made of shadows
that swings between pine tree and church.

Pigeons search through the dry grass,
diligent, working their turf.
If, at 44, you begin to learn
you are not, after all, the point of the world,

what then? The bells ring 6 P.M.,
the shadows no longer just a bridge,
but a road widening into darkness
and the night beyond. Everyone

is going for a walk on that road
one time soon, if not here
where the roads are made of water,
then somewhere else, somewhere equally strange,

some tide-lulled Venice of the brain.
There is a moment when our empires fade to nothing at last.
Where once we had stood ashamed,
unable to understand our place in the universe,

now moonlight is there, shining its bridge across open water.