The Bridge

Alan Shapiro

Over the bridge across the river, 

 the pilgrims prayed in lockstep（步伐一致）, 

 and the deafening coherence 

 of the single voice they made 

 was a fulfillment of the dream 

 each voice, alone, inaudible, 

 dreamt it could be as it prayed. 

The gold dome of the holy shrine 

 beyond the bridge was glistening 

 like the paradise inside the prayer, 

 which the prayer was promising 

 to those who said the prayer 

 the way it wanted to be said, 

 which was the way they said it, 

as if they were a people only 

 of the prayer, a people 

 spoken through by what 

 they spoke together, who 

 by being spoken through 

 could almost think that they 

 were there already -- there 

in the light of what they'd be 

 the single voice of endlessly 

 instead of merely people on a bridge, 

 instead of more and still more 

 jammed hard together, pressed 

 in and pushing in to inch 

 in forward like a giant knot 

they were all trying to untie 

 by tying tighter under sun 

 that smoldered（闷烧，郁积） a white 

 hole in the dome's reflection 

 in the dark fast river -- till 

 one by one all along the bridge 

 they started spilling over 

like small impurities the praying 

 mass they were spit out 

 as it surged through and past 

 the screams that sank like duff 

 down the smoldering hole 

 the sun burned on the rippling 

 dome within the water 

that outside the prayer was in-

 escapable, uncrossable 

 except as water flowing from 

 and to within and over 

 water -- made from water 

 out of heat forged from the 

 coldest nothing that there is.