The Bridge Builder

I pulled out a book I haven't read in a while last night. I saw some pieces of paper sticking out and a smile crossed my face. They were "progress notes" for charts we used at the University of South Alabama Children's and Women's Hospital. I used to work midnights there, and if there was a lull in work, I'd read and write down notes from what I was reading on blank progress notes that the doctors used to update charts every morning. I had forgotten that I'd written all this stuff down and found some very interesting writings. One was a poem I'd read in a magazine - from Reminisce - August 1999. Since the magazine didn't belong to me, I hand-wrote the poem, and stuffed it inside this book. It's a poem called "The Bridge Builder." I find it intriguing.

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 twilight dim -
The sullen stream held no fear for him-
But he turned, when he reached the other side
And built a bridge to span the tide.

"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim near,
"You're wasting your strength in building here.
Your journey will end with the ending day-
You never again must pass this way
You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide.
Why build you this bridge at the eventide?"

The builder lifted his old, gray head.
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said
"There followeth after me today
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
this chasm that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in twilight dim.
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him."