Lights Under the Bridge
In the morning, too, the river flows under the bridge. Where the lights once fell, the back of the man who fished there is gone, and the bridge lights that lay on the water have vanished as well. The end of the line that went down into the water was nowhere to be seen. The river carries off those lights and that place, and still it flows at the same pace.
The railing of the stone bridge by the water was slick and wet with the rain that fell overnight. With no moon, only streetlights lit the path and no one else was walking it, so only my shadow lay on that surface.
The shadow on the railing wet overnight also vanishes like the river once the sun rises, and no one knows until someone's footsteps reach it again.
I once saw the grass rise again where a man who'd been fishing had folded up his chair. The river carries things off and leaves things behind that quietly.
Dew forms where the grass has risen again, and that dew, too, runs downward like the river.
I recall a streetlight swaying in the night wind, its light reaching the grass by the water, its shadow riding the ripples for a moment and flowing away. When the wind stops, the shadow stands still too.
The shadow on the ripples, too, must have gone back into the grass once the wind died down.
Even after the river carried that place away, on the embankment path I walked there was still the single abandoned shoe I'd seen yesterday. Faded by the rain, that shoe goes unclaimed by anyone. Only I am looking at it.
That shoe was probably in the same place as yesterday, turned in a slightly different direction. The river brushed the embankment overnight and nudged it a little. Shifting bit by bit like that, someday it will leave the water's edge.
I'm reminded of an old man on the riverside path who rose from his seat and gazed toward the bridge. He stood so long I wondered what he was thinking, but at the time I simply walked past.
Where the old man was looking, the river must have been passing through the same place then as now.
Sitting down at the fishing spot, I found yesterday's bait bag fluttering in the wind. Beside it, a single roasted chestnut lay quietly, still warm.