Belinda's Bridge

I'm on a train to Baltimore, my device, by insubstantive devices tells me - that somewhere, around the wailing, wawling seas, a girl has stepped back, floated up, found the above - by falling into her Within. She's found her heart, and knows it (once more) by heart. A bridge is built, in Australia - on linen. In Victoria. In victory, Invictus. The waters, the hard waters, these waters flowed for years; she stuck on one side, as in a war... Everyone is a soldier, everyone caught on one side - outside. She chose sides, like anyone in wartime. (It's always wartime.) She enlisted with her side, as every soldier (whether peasant or private or poet), as every souldier does - her inside, fighting a sort, her sort, her sorts of battles there. Days became years, years became endless moments, Darkness became Blue. She saw a red chair, somewhere there. She saw protest and quetch, but stayed true with brush and sketch. She saw tears. She shed tears. And she sat, brushing and brushless. Zen and zenless. Again and a loss. Again and a gain. Again and a zen. She saw illusion... and saw through it too. She was fearless in embrace of her fear, her embrace of the fear cast off, ignored, unmet by Others. Thousands of Others, Thousands of days. Few saw her fight. They saw a girl sitting, They saw a girl still sitting, right there where she had been. They saw a girl, when they did see a girl...they saw a girl messy with paint. She was fearless, but for her fear. And now, a bridge carries her over the great, the noisy, the frothy burblings below. And now, a bridge carries my heart to a land I'd forgot... without ever knowing. I'm on a train to Baltimore, Track, trestle, catenary, crowds. I can't see what I write. My eyes are welled shut. And my heart is well, too.