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.