Poem – The New Bridge

The New Bridge

I was stuck in traffic, blocked
on the Bayview to Lawrence parking ramp
We drivers were all willing
the suspension of the laws of science
So that we might turn left,
All other traffic suspended from animation
And we might safely ignore
The entrance to Glendon College
And the stream of impossibly young
College kids, do they really let them in
At eleven these days.
But it wasn’t working.
So we sat in our private boxes of despair.

Then I remembered thirty years ago
When they built this
The new bridge
And the ramps, the underpass,
And my buddies and I riding our bikes
Over the rough cement base
Using the high and mighty manholes
As slalom gates.
It was summer
And we had no school
And everything was perfect.
Not a car in sight that day.
We had it all.

[this would have been in the early 1960s in Toronto at Bayview Ave. and Lawrence Ave. East}