Emmaus by Fiona Benson (b1978)

And if you should forget
walk out across the Hungerford Bridge
where the city falls back

and pylons loom in the dark
like an avenue of silver birch.
Regard the work:

a simple stitch, it heals
the breach of the river, allows passage and pause
to acknowledge our place

beneath this infinite sky
in a wind that knows we are mortal, porous,
a beautiful trick of the light.

© Fiona Benson 2014. From Bright Travellers, published by Jonathan Cape, £10

Hungerford Bridge crosses the river Thames between Charing Cross station and the Royal Festival Hall. In 2002 the footbridges on either side were upgraded with pylons and suspension cables. The poem has the simple idea that stepping out across the river creates a space for contemplation. The poem’s title invites us to recall the two disciples who were travelling to Emmaus and met a man they did not recognise until he broke bread with them and they realised he was Jesus. The story is often understood as indicating the restoration of hope. “Infinite sky” is a grandiloquent cliché not meaning much. Benson wants to suggest that stopping in the middle of the bridge is a way of being out of the city and reconnecting with something so much bigger than ourselves that it forces an acknowledgment of our mortality: she does not entirely convince.