I experience this as a provocative poem and wonder what your reaction is to it.
I wonder what a velvet bridge is and think about the fact that we must all cross it, velvet or not, unless we jump off (which, I for one, will not do).
What are we praying for? What are we wishing for? I will walk or run across my bridges, singing or crying. The velvet bridge is not a swinging, slippery bridge. It provides protection, comfort and softness and yet it is an aerial bridge, not a stepping stone bridge. Yes, it is still a bridge and like it or not we must walk it.
ON PRAYER — Czeslaw Milosz
“You ask me how to pray to someone who is not.
All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge
And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard,
Above landscapes the color of ripe gold
Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun.
That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal
Where everything is just the opposite and the word is
Unveils a meaning we hardly envisioned.
Notice: I say we; there, every one, separately,
Feels compassion for others entangled in the flesh
And knows that if there is no other shore
We will walk that aerial bridge all the same.”