1 Poem by Doug Bolling

0nce A Falling Bridge
             When I pass over the bridge, 
                Lo, the water floweth not, but the bridge doth
                flow. ___________Fudaishi (quoted from An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, Suzuki ) 

always I had sought

serenity in a summer’s day


sunlight along a shadow’s

edge


robins holding up their

trees


poolings of water gentle

making only

silence


But

that bridge my bridge

my sudden

life


of a certain summer

afternoon


a collapse of its arched

walkway


over Koi  Lagoon

of water lilies

lovely in


their delicate palms

of green

open always


a failing of strut                                                                      falling bridge /2

timber aged

worn to

rot


my ashen face

dropping through

an infinite

of loosening

air


suddenly


they said

after


the sinking

through

green spaces


never before

seen


my only years

now rushing

through


my only

brain


a theater

never

entered


entered


you might

have drowned


said after


now you live

are fish

are flower


almost a

silken                                                                                      falling bridge/3

thing

now wet

now dry.


Bionote                                                         

Doug Bolling’s poetry has appeared in Posit, Juked, Water-Stone Review, Perfume River Poetry Review, Folia, And the Anglo-Asian journal The Missing Slate (with Interview) among others. His work has received Best of the Net And Pushcart nominations and several awards, most recently the
Mathiasen Prize for his poem “Body and Soul” from Harmony Magazine published at the University of Arizona. He lives in the Greater Chicago area.