THE NATURAL BRIDGE
A stony arch of faces almost
glimpsed;
An unwound scroll of writing
almost read:
What bodies interwoven
through the stone
That snow and rain dissolve
and penetrate
With the carbonic acid of
decay!
It seems to be unmoving, yet
it flows
Untrammeled as the lacy
waterfall
That cascades into foam on
Cedar Creek—
Each bubble comprehending in
itself
The unhewn bridge, the
tourists, even you,
Who contemplate the nature of
the mind.
Unconscious forces shape
these primal forms,
This sculpture of the
universe; this door
Swings open from the sky to
let the gods
Pass in and out of man’s
world as they will.
When Jefferson got down on
hands and knees,
And crawled toward its
precipice to view
The canyon from above, a
violent pain
Coursed through his head
after a moment passed;
And he shrank back before the
great abyss.
Today a wooden fence would
shield his sight,
For now the highway dominates
the crest—
And what was once conceived
in Liberty
Has paved the way to every
sacred place,
And posted signs to advertise
their worth.
At
evening, when the gorge is dark enough,
The flood lights hidden in the clefts and trees
Illuminate the arch with colored rays,
As orchestration and the Lord’s Prayer swell
The night air with a paean to the God’s work
Of Biblical creation, when the world
Unfolded from His mind in seven days—
The very world the Human mind creates
In the mere instant that it takes to see
This awesome vision of Eternity.
But they who cannot focus long enough
With their own eyes and minds upon the show,
Distract the rest with flashing cameras
And digital reviews on tiny screens.
The Indians once worshipped
here, though what
And how, it is now hard to
ascertain—
Especially for people so
abstract
And alienated from their origins
As those who overran this
hallowed place,
And conquered the New World.
The natives’ soul
Was one with this America,
and served
No God commanding conquest in
his name,
No lust for separate and
immortal Self.
Imagination beamed the
mountains forth;
The sunlight from the
prehistoric dawn;
The hibernating bear and
running deer;
The virgin forests vast and
unsurveyed;
The waters so immaculate and
pure:
A vision was this Earth
itself to those
Whom we have named Native
Americans.
Geology, which Jefferson
contemned,
Has traced the evolution of
this bridge
From Cedar Creek, which
burrowed underground
And formed a tunnel several
miles in length
Along its present bed. But
piece by piece,
Its roof caved in; and at the
present day
All that remains of it is
this same Arch
Which one day will collapse
in its own turn.
One stands beneath the groin
of the bridge
Upon the walkway that
bestrides the creek,
And feels a pleasant draft
between the stream
And parapet where Jefferson
stared down.
The eighteen-year-old
Washington took hold
Of this behemoth, and climbed
up its side
Until he got a foothold; then
he carved
His own initials in the
ancient rock
He should have worshipped as
the face of God.
The rainbow trout and carp
float through the creek,
And heron stalk the waters in
a trance.
In clefts above, the doves
are murmuring
What doves have murmured for
a million years.
Beside the stairs that follow
Cascade Creek
Downhill toward the bridge,
in death there leans
A tree, an ancient arbor
vitae, thought
To be the largest and the
oldest such
Existing in the world. These
trees increase
About an inch each thirty
years in width,
And this one spans in inches
fifty-six.
It seems to have a withered,
weathered face
Turned backwards into time,
away from me;
Away from all who toward its
secrets pry.
A slave named Patrick Henry
had a house
Upon these grounds; caretaker
of the bridge
His master purchased from
King George the Third,
Before the war was waged that
would affirm
The rights that Man by Nature
did possess,
Except in certain cases.
In the
days
When this estate became
another’s right,
The tourists gathered in a
metal cage,
And, lowered from the summit
of the bridge,
Were serenaded by the violin.
What Declarations here stand
on display
In this occult and wondrous
archives
Smoothed over by the tufa
oozing through
The limestone! Every rain
that falls prepares
This dissolution of this
edifice, and strains
Carbon dioxide from the
plants’ decay,
Which forms the acid that
erodes the arch,
Creating portraits faced the
other way
Like paintings turned against
the stony wall,
And hieroglyphics of
forgotten ways.
Whose faces are they? What is
written there?
Sometimes I think I see you,
and myself.
No one who sees these
patterns should conceal
The truth from people who
cannot conceive
Their own Mind otherwise than
to be owned,
Exploited and developed, mass
produced—
Who would consume their
birthright piece by piece,
Exploring Nature’s
passageways to mine
The Rock of Ages for its
fossil fuel.
For them has been erected, on
the crest
Of one nearby and lonely
little hill,
A Stonehenge replica of
Styrofoam,
Spray painted gray and
shaped, they say, to scale;
Upon which idle vandals
scratch their names
With sharp stones while the
Blue Ridge fades in mist.
Whoever carves his name upon
this bridge
Is guaranteed to turn a
blinded eye
Upon what man’s device cannot
create—
What looms like Eden’s gate
behind their backs!
Meanwhile, the faces and the
writing call
Contemplatives to that
Eternity
Which never leaves us, which
we never leave,
As long as like the Indians
who dwelt
Here, we respect the spirit
forms,
And scratch our villages upon
the Earth
So that we leave no trace
when we are gone,
Except perhaps for fossil
prints and bone,
Above the caverns that one
day shall fall
Along with this great
monument,-- this bridge
Which spans between us and
our origin:
Behold it now, as, lonely and
unborn,
It rises from the mists of
consciousness.
