The Old Stone Bridge

The painting is titled 'River Under an Old Stone Bridge'
And I wondered when the old structure was new, and if someone said,
"Let's go see the new bridge," and then stood and marveled at it all through the afternoon

And when did it become old, exactly?
What passed from mind—what memories, what youth, what bodies—
So that there came the first instance when no one remembered when it was built or could pay testament to its long and stolid history?

When did it pass from "Oh, wow" to artifact—
A literal span of taken-for granted granite
An indelible fact, old as time, to be relied on as just as faithful

Slowly, we all become less aware of wonders
And move at speeds sufficient for the forgetting of things and would forget, even, the first need to drive out over expanses, and to fill breaches—
To make the paths that make our way

But it was once fresh granite, carved by strong, lean hands, hard muscles straining, all through the summer sun, into September, before the weather turned

It was once a marvel, and men and women with their children stood on the banks and shook their heads in pride and smiled, grateful they would no longer have to cross downstream, near the ford which was impassable most of the spring

With sight, all banality ceases to be, and all things rise in wonder, to be seen
All things ascend, waiting for eyes that will appraise rightly, 
And will trod on reality with grateful feet
With steps which can’t help but sing