The Rotten Bridge

Connecting two cliffs standing
Opposite each other
Rests a bridge
Which ought to offer a connection between two
opposite forests
One real, one imagined
Real before, imagined after the crossing

Strong.straight wide woods were used
To build the bridge to facilitate crossing
The real forest to the imagined one
Believed to be bearing best birds
Feathered with beautiful colours
Blue, pink, yellow, orange, purple
Its beauty, like that of a peacock
Spreading its multi-coloured tail
Against the early alluring sun
Of the mid morning

The wood believed to be appropriate
Emerged to be the worst
Eucalyptus could not share
A nail with the oak
It frowned and protested, and lamented and, threatened
The cypress seldom lay next to
The mighty mahogany
Which loathed jacaranda
With the venom of a hungry python
From deep the African savannah
The cedar almost spat
On the face of euphorbia
For calling him dear brother

The woods hated each other
The woods hardly tolerated their coexistence
The woods preferred isolation
The woods hated their neighbours
they hardly had half a minute
To lend each other their ears

The good wood making the bridge
Formed clusters of their respective species
There emerged fissures
That water and rodents
Penetrated and found refuge
And destroyed the bridge
Much to the disgust of the real forest.