Crossing the Green Bridge with Jerry by Lynn Levin

Crossing the Green Bridge with Jerry

             In memory of Gerald Stern

We were walking across the green bridge from Lambertville
to New Hope, and you were 72, the age that I am now.
You called it stinking New Hope because it was full
of shops and tourists and that brought out the vehemence
in you. But you loved the little shul there and Sandy the rabbi.
As for walking across the bridge, you did not love that.
It was a truss bridge lacy and airy. Cars passed over
a metal grating and drivers could look to the river below.
Nothing very solid between a car and the great drop,
though the walkway for foot traffic was paved
and there were handrails and guard rails. Being in the air
over the Delaware pleased me. I would watch the flycatchers
and swallows swooping, look down at the turtles congregating
on the bases of the piers. You told me you feared bridges
because you feared heights, that horses, too, feared bridges,
and that people covered them to make the horses feel safe.
Between you and beasts there was always a brotherhood
and for humans you reserved your love and rage and sadness.
Looking back across the bridge now toward Lambertville,
I almost see you. How young you were then and in your prime.

*

Lynn Levin is a poet and writer. She lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and teaches English and creative writing at Drexel University. Her poems have appeared in Boulevard, Ploughshares, Smartish Pace, Plume, Rattle, on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac, and other places. Her most recent books are the short story collection House Parties (Spuyten Duyvil, 2023) and the poetry collection The Minor Virtues (Ragged Sky, 2020). Her website is lynnlevinpoet.com.