Brooklyn Bridge

Eighteen sixty-nine to eighteen eighty-three,
Fourteen years and fifteen million dollars;
Twenty lives lost, strikes, scandals and cost overruns.
The Roeblings – engineers and overseers;
Father and then son and then daughter-in-law
   given to the bridge.

The first steel suspension bridge
With its two majestic stone towers
And gently sweeping cables ---
Four black, spun, ropes of steel
Coated with molten zinc,
Galvanized against the rust,
Hanging lofty between the narrow shoulders
Of the tall, looming stone towers.

These two giant imposing towers,
Built by stonemasons, stone by stone, brick by brick,
Standing twenty-eight stories above the river.
Caissons, sunk far below, hug the bedrock
And the sand to bear the tonnage of the towers;
These towers, standing like giants in relief,
Foreboding against the distant New York skyline.

Towers with ancient eyes encased in stone:
Tall, narrow, pointed, broken arches;
neo-Gothic portals, gallant gateways,
Mighty sentinels to the city.
This bridge, this grand historic Brooklyn Bridge,
With its medieval stone towers and silent steel cables;
Making its way for more than a mile across
   the East River

This bridge, as much a part of the American landscape
As the awesome castles and cathedrals
Are to the visitors of Europe.