its existence. . . .” Even better (all this from Thomas Hardy), a “class of objects displayed in the shop windows . . . Scythes, reap-hooks, sheep-shears, bell-hooks, spades, mattocks, and hoes at the ironmonger’s; beehives, butter-firkins, churns, milking stools and pails, hay-rakes, field-flagons, and seed-lips at the cooper’s; cart-ropes and plough-harnesses at the saddler’s; carts, wheel-barrows and mill-gear at the wheelwright’s and machinist’s; horse-embrocations at the chemist’s; at the glover’s and leathercutter’s, hedging-gloves, thatchers’ knee-caps, ploughmen’s leggings, villagers’ pattens and clogs. . . .” Oh, boots to lace up against scalding and scraping! Commerce boiled, reconstituted—made rhythmic with breath, heavy with being.
I wanted a footpath, a field-edge—a sidewalk. People at ease with neighbors and chatting. A simple plaque at the site of—whatever : Here the cadets of 42E sat to eat their first grits . Scrap of wing or propeller on the Hilton’s faux mantle. Fins and Flippers next to every Gideon’s Bible.
What did I find? Some Februaries that matched—one then and one now; some novices each with their good fights and good words, their gratitudes, civilities, and homey soft puddings.
I wanted to know what happened here, on land like this.
Now I know.
People learn to fly through it. And then they go home.
Jump
It’s a small thing that holds me.
On the sign that reads Last Death from Jumping or Diving from Bridge, June 15, 1995, it’s the or I can’t shake. Why fuss with ambivalence when real mystery abides: here stood intolerable grief or failure. Sheerest abandon, joy in a long summer evening. A dare. Need for adventure /a history of. Why work at precision when, hitched as they are to Death in this fragment, both Jump and Dive convey a misjudging of depth, of current, ignorance of rocks below the dark water, and, with “June” added, an insistent sun peaking the river with camouflage ripples. And isn’t it Death that I, passerby, secret entertainer of edges and precipices, should instead linger over—approaching, riding, then putting behind me the impulse as I cross the bridge, daily this winter?
Someone thought to be personal about it, not slap up an ordinance “By order of” and “with a $$$ fine.” No organization (Bridge Jumpers Anon) claimed the sign; it’s not a fraternity service project or probationary do-good feat. That unadorned “Death” is no stat-like “fatality.” “Or” is a move to cover the bases, and observed here, now, mid-February, the slightest warmth coming on, barest inflection of sweetness in air, the river still frozen—it opens up all kinds of questions.
Imagine the onset of summer in Iowa, each day in June the light and soft air a surprise, a relief from the long winter’s cold. It’s been twelve years now since the sign’s announcement. The bare facts are holding, but time folds the story back into “the past.” None of my friends here remember the death. When I stand on the bridge thinking “twelve years ago now” the form of an actual body in air, in water, is vague and the best I can do to buoy the body is shirt-puffed-in-wind, corona-of-hair-floating-behind.
Twelve years ago now. Where’d the story go?
One in which no one moved quickly enough. Because he was the athlete. Because she, such a practical joker, would surface any minute, any minute for sure. No one moved off the bridge, tearing a path through the tangle of cattails and blackberry to plunge in and help. Or everyone tried, but she was under too long. Or he stood by himself in the early pink dawn, and the act, intended to purify—the cold water awaken, the silence exalt—was planned as a private moment.
Around the sign, around the inconclusive or —because of the or , the pause it stirs, the space it opens—fragments and conjectures gather: the last person was drunk. The last person, despondent, tied a brick to her ankle. The
I wanted a footpath, a field-edge—a sidewalk. People at ease with neighbors and chatting. A simple plaque at the site of—whatever : Here the cadets of 42E sat to eat their first grits . Scrap of wing or propeller on the Hilton’s faux mantle. Fins and Flippers next to every Gideon’s Bible.
What did I find? Some Februaries that matched—one then and one now; some novices each with their good fights and good words, their gratitudes, civilities, and homey soft puddings.
I wanted to know what happened here, on land like this.
Now I know.
People learn to fly through it. And then they go home.
Jump
It’s a small thing that holds me.
On the sign that reads Last Death from Jumping or Diving from Bridge, June 15, 1995, it’s the or I can’t shake. Why fuss with ambivalence when real mystery abides: here stood intolerable grief or failure. Sheerest abandon, joy in a long summer evening. A dare. Need for adventure /a history of. Why work at precision when, hitched as they are to Death in this fragment, both Jump and Dive convey a misjudging of depth, of current, ignorance of rocks below the dark water, and, with “June” added, an insistent sun peaking the river with camouflage ripples. And isn’t it Death that I, passerby, secret entertainer of edges and precipices, should instead linger over—approaching, riding, then putting behind me the impulse as I cross the bridge, daily this winter?
Someone thought to be personal about it, not slap up an ordinance “By order of” and “with a $$$ fine.” No organization (Bridge Jumpers Anon) claimed the sign; it’s not a fraternity service project or probationary do-good feat. That unadorned “Death” is no stat-like “fatality.” “Or” is a move to cover the bases, and observed here, now, mid-February, the slightest warmth coming on, barest inflection of sweetness in air, the river still frozen—it opens up all kinds of questions.
Imagine the onset of summer in Iowa, each day in June the light and soft air a surprise, a relief from the long winter’s cold. It’s been twelve years now since the sign’s announcement. The bare facts are holding, but time folds the story back into “the past.” None of my friends here remember the death. When I stand on the bridge thinking “twelve years ago now” the form of an actual body in air, in water, is vague and the best I can do to buoy the body is shirt-puffed-in-wind, corona-of-hair-floating-behind.
Twelve years ago now. Where’d the story go?
One in which no one moved quickly enough. Because he was the athlete. Because she, such a practical joker, would surface any minute, any minute for sure. No one moved off the bridge, tearing a path through the tangle of cattails and blackberry to plunge in and help. Or everyone tried, but she was under too long. Or he stood by himself in the early pink dawn, and the act, intended to purify—the cold water awaken, the silence exalt—was planned as a private moment.
Around the sign, around the inconclusive or —because of the or , the pause it stirs, the space it opens—fragments and conjectures gather: the last person was drunk. The last person, despondent, tied a brick to her ankle. The
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