I Am Collector Bridge

I am the little bridge over Collector Creek
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities,
I do not worry if briefer days grow briefest -
I am not sorry when wind and rain make August

My life is the life of the traveller and worker;
my songs are songs of the earth's own striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying) people -
to whose sadness or joy I play my bass and fiddle

Around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope above the perfect patience of the hills

I am Collector Bridge far from the frantic world
and its rapture and anguish, at peace with nature;
I do not worry if longer nights grow longest,
I am not sorry when silence becomes singing

Winter by spring I lift my timber beams into
the floodplain's sky - whose only now is forever,
a mortal witness to the eternity of its presence,
welcoming humbly the light and proudly the darkness.

F Ross (with apologies to ee cummings)

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Why is Collector Creek & Bridge so undervalued by Council?
(Click on image to enlarge)