Civil Discourse

 

This magnificent bridge crosses every distance,

arches over silt-clogged drainage ditches,

past bulldozed acres where owls once called,

across a city loveliest when morning light

streaks orange over the Exxon station.

 

It spans acres farmed by lumbering machines

so heavy they crush the soil’s hidden universe.

Reaches over oceans and mountains.

Stretches back and forward through time.

 

Entrance ramp are infinite.

 

Angry trolls use nets strung together

with logical fallacies and Super Pac money

to knock people off their feet

and drag them so far under

they can’t see the bridge,

can’t remember it exists.

 

Still, the bridge is there.

Squint down the length of it,

you’ll see it leads everywhere.

Laura Grace Weldon

Originally published in Mobius: The Journal of Social Change.  Find more poems in my collection, Tending.