Connecting People

It is not the steel, nor the concrete, nor even the careful geometry of its arches that gives the bridge its purpose—it is the hollow beneath it, the space it spans.

By day, footsteps drum across its back: workers with lunchboxes, students with untied shoelaces, old women carrying baskets of persimmons balanced on their hips. Laughter skims the river below, where boys toss pebbles at their own reflections. By night, lanterns bloom along its rails, and lovers pause mid-crossing, as if the bridge has whispered, Look how far you’ve come.

The river neither objects nor applauds. It simply flows, as rivers do, around the pillars that interrupt it. But the bridge—the bridge remembers every footfall, every sigh, every whispered Meet me halfway.