From the Bridge

This time it happened as he crossed

the bridge over the defunct

railroad spur behind the warehouse-

Do it Do it-he counted

the rusted tracks, bouquets

of tall weed, fat concrete sockets

for the feet of the silver iron bridge.

Do it Do it Do it this time

it took that form. He stopped

and cautiously observed all

the things that had been cast there,

shoes, years of paper, bottles,

cans, boxes, car parts, weird shapes.

Which is what men use so why

worry or try to comprehend

anything even that impulse

tolling in his skull, that two-word

delicate command from some

source of revelation and grace

and truth at the core of his mind.

The mind does have a "core,"

where life and death are the same,

where nothing matters, not even

. .. who knows? The day was fairly clear

and not hot, "pleasant" is probably

the word you'd hear if you dialed

the weather, and yet there was nothing

he could do about

the desire of others. Do it

was the result of absorbing

that desire, he understood, as he

leaned on the scabby, dented rail,

a desire to have more, to

know what will come next, to

be sure of why and when.

But how can we have those?

"When nothing you do will do, what

do you do?" Hisamatsu asks,

and that's about the same as Do it,

in a voice not his, not anyone's,

the anonymous possibility

of choosing this. Well, he was walking to

his office, Saturday, to clear up

work, write letters, think,

he was trying to connect his pain

with something that would modify

his relationship to pain,

make it no particular person's,

certainly not his. But all he

knew was the unqualified

sweet feeling on the bridge that

to be alive is not better

than to lie with the tracks, waste

metal, paper and glass

like a thing, and why not, he thought, why not,

after all it is someone else,

not me, chanting that puny sentence

Do it Do it like the crowd at

a football game, and it must be

wonderful not to want at all

like junk decaying on cinders

that winks when you move your head

or when the sun's unquestionable presence

each day merges with the world

inching off by itself out of reach.