Trent Bridge, Nottingham (UK) and Atiwhakatu Track bridge, Masterton (NZ)

Trent Bridge in 2020, showing glimpses of the two sports stadia - for football and cricket - beyond. Photo by Tracy Whitefoot.

At the bridge

At the bridge you can listen to Opera.
Bat a hundred.
Catch the rowers row the catch.

At the bridge
You can walk
To the match
Across iron and stone
Spot a swan, maybe.
A boundary.
A gate to a new

Life
Her first one forgotten, Bonny Prince Charlie aside,
Brought back to now with a shy, blue plaque and padlocks as ties.
The flow of her stretches away to the Staffies 
Yet half the way impassible. 
Only this flow, flows North.
And who has lost themselves in this water?
Who paid the price for what’s under you, 
at the bridge?

by Kaye Brennan

Kaye says, “Trent Bridge has not only function. It has form. The river is almost a side note in the iconography of Trent’s bridge - in a way it doesn’t deserve; its history and topography is remarkable. With the pull of the current and the dank weedy river’s edge though I’m glad of the bridge for a different reason.”

The swing bridge over Waiohine Gorge on the Atiwhakatu Track near Masterton. Photo by Hayden Maskell

Metal and Mathematics

Metal and mathematics
forge engineering miracles.
Bridges, for example: steel isthmuses
stitching place to place,
spanning distance and time,
each one a long, stately 
middle-finger to geology,
fit for purpose, postcards 
and thousand-piece puzzles.
But I prefer a different kind of bridge:
ugly and terrifying,
slung between spikes 
jutting from rock, cables
that sing in the wind,
steel webs spanning chasms, 
tightropes over rivers, rocks, ferns.
				Bridges that hold
				one person 
				MAXIMUM 
			and even then
		each step
 	  feels
   	as
     if
   it
m
i
 g
 h
   t
	go
	  ping—
		But then—solid ground, earth,
			the impassible made possible
			by metal and mathematics.

by Hayden Maskell

Hayden says, "My favourite bridges are in the Tararua Forest Park. The Department of Conservation website describes one of them thusly:
“…a high, narrow wire swing bridge with a one-person-at-a-time restriction. Some people may find it difficult.”
Note: that’s the beginner bridge. Trek further into the hills and you cross another that’s higher, longer, swingier, and permanently rain-slicked, often disappearing into the mist. 
For me, the swing bridge is the perfect bridge. Don’t get me wrong: I admire grand feats of engineering as much as the next man. But the swing bridge has a purity of purpose: its form is entirely dictated by function. And when you’re alone, suspended above a waterfall on a slippery steel isthmus swaying in the wind, you gain a very different appreciation for what a bridge makes possible.