Festival of Bridges #7 ~ Bridges and Sighs

There are all sorts of bridges that make me sigh and I want to thank David Millington-Croft from the magnificent There is No Cavalry for mentioning the Bridge of Sighs in a comment at the start of this Festival of Bridges. 

Bridge of Sighs, Venice.
http://www.artween.com

I’ve spent most of the day thinking about bridges that make me sigh and also pondering on the word sigh. I’m taking it in a positive sense here ~ to mean bridges in a range of contexts that have touched my soul.  Here are my top five out of possible thousands!

#1 Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco ~ a bridge that won my heart in 1983 and is still carved there, especially when I see the sun rising.

Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco
http://www.patricksmithphotogtraphy.com

 #2 Claude Monet’s painting of The Bridge at Argenteuil.  I associate this  very much with my late father and I was fortunate enough to see it in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC in November 2010, just eight weeks after father’s death.

The Bridge at Argenteuil
http://www.cmonetgallery.com

3# Senator George Mitchell who played such a key role  in negotiating the Peace Process in Northern Ireland. Having lived through the years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland which claimed the lives of over 3,000 people, I am eternally grateful that those terrible, terrible years are behind us.

Senator George Mitchell
http://www.wesa.fm

#4 Jack B. Yeats’ painting  ‘The Liffey Swim.’  This painting has huge significance for me as it hangs in The National Gallery of Ireland, a place which I visited very, very regularly throughout the 15+ years I lived in Dublin.  When I was leaving Dublin I bought a copy of the painting which lives in my study here in Tramore. The bridge in the painting is Butt Bridge which I crossed regularly, especially during my junior tennis days when I was catching the train to and from Drogheda which was home then.

The Liffey Swim
by Jack.B.Yeats
http://www.nationalgallery.ie

# ‘The Bridge Builder’ by Will Allen Drumgoole.  This poem reminds me of the many, many older people who have built bridges for me over the years. I would like to think that I thanked them sufficiently for their kindness but I know full well that I didn’t.

THE BRIDGE BUILDER

An old man going a lone highway,

Came, at the evening cold and gray,

To a chasm vast and deep and wide.

Through which was flowing a sullen tide

The old man crossed in the twilight dim,

The sullen stream had no fear for him;

But he turned when safe on the other side

And built a bridge to span the tide.

 

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near,

“You are wasting your strength with building here;

Your journey will end with the ending day,

You never again will pass this way;

You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide,

Why build this bridge at evening tide?”

 

The builder lifted his old gray head;

“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,

“There followed after me to-day

A youth whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm that has been as naught to me

To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be;

He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;

Good friend, I am building this bridge for him!”

 

 Will Allen Drumgoole

 

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The Festival of Bridges continues until October 31 and I would love to hear about bridges that make YOU sigh. Please email me with your words, images, music at jeantubridy@aol.com. 

 

The Christmas Truce ~ Gatherings from Ireland # 353

Ireland has just edged passed midnight and into Christmas Day as I write this. At this time each year, I think of the Christmas Truce which occurred on Christmas Day among the soldiers in the trenches in World War in1914, one hundred and one years ago now.

I sense I can hear them singing Silent Night and creating a momentary peace in one of the most vicious wars in history.

It’s a night, too, that brings me to the poetry of Francis Ledwidge, from Slane in Co. Meath, who will killed in action in Ypres in 1917.

Home

A burst of sudden wings at dawn,

Faint voices in a dreamy noon,

Evenings of mist and murmurings,

And nights with rainbows of the moon.

 

And through these things in a wood-way dim,

And waters dim, and slow sheep seen

On uphill paths that wind away

Through summers sounds and harvest green.

 

This is a song a robin sang

This morning on a broken tree,

It was about the little fields

That call across the world to me.

(from The Ledwidge Treasury: Selected Poems (2007) Dublin: New Island)

This poem makes me think of all those who, like Francis Ledwidge, crave to be back home in Ireland, be they in the defence forces abroad or people who have had to emigrate due to the recession.

It also brings me to the current efforts by US diplomat Dr Richard Haass and talks vice-chair Dr Meghan O’Sullivan to try resolve some of the outstanding issues in the Northern Ireland Peace Process.

Peace in so fundamental to life, be it peace of mind, peace of heart, or peace between warring factions.

May this Christmas be peaceful for you at all levels.