Weekly Poem: 'Half-Finished Bridge'

**By Jim Tilley** No important work to do today, I think, as I lie in the hammock one last time before storing it for winter, just a few chores around the yard -- deck chairs to be stacked and stashed away and the lawn raked despite the pears and oaks hanging on to their green. Stamped on the pencil I'm using, _first snow falling on the half-finished bridge,_ now as in Basho's time, the halfway done possibly a road to nowhere, like the wars we shouldn't start and the marriages we can't finish. But he must've meant that I find myself amidst the season's first flurries, leaves collecting at my feet as I rock in the wind, writing to my father that I'm grateful he's still alive and there's time to erect the rest of the trestle and walk together to the other side, light snow falling on our backs.   "Jim Tilley":http://jimtilley.net/index.html is the author of the poetry collection, "In Confidence." His poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and have won several awards.