Bridge: London Bridge
Title: London Bridge on London Bridge
Writer: Jonathan Holt
Creative partner: Lydia Thornley
The work: Two signed and numbered lithographs from a limited edition of four, each c.11 x 8 inches
Description: A free verse poem reflecting on the bridge’s often overlooked depths and layers and responding to the lithography process, which involves stone being ground into mud to make something new.
LONDON BRIDGE ON LONDON BRIDGE
Jonathan Holt
Back and forth it goes, the straight-line zoetrope
open on most sides but single minded
heads full of unfinished business or glistening views.
The feet know that there’s more going on here
than a concrete pin connecting old and newer London.
Rumblings. Apart from the water, my moving shadow
is the truest thing here. There are other versions,
other days—half lives and diluted pasts. My granite
has been commemorating fluidity for millions of years.
Each crossing and tide bring closer what’s coming,
which is to say inklings of change. Time rises and falls
adding texture and revealing jewels.
I’m good at patience but that isn’t the virtue
I was put here to support. The flow is what matters,
is all that matters, and dust to dust is never the end.