Eulogy For the Alvord T

Peoples o’ the County, a death was decreed
This day of Five June Two Thousand One-Three
As sudden as lightning yet slow as a burn
This work of man and pillar of service we mourn.

‘Twas 99 years earlier when we built a dream:
A little steel T Bridge crossing the river of Green
Its metal and rivets glist’ning up, down, side-to-side
Spoke of hope for the future and American pride.

‘Tween meadows of Kent like an outstretched hand
Enjoining o’er the valley and its vista of farm land
It carried the farmer, the horse and the carriage
It carried the soldier, laborer and many a marriage.

T was its style yet this T Bridge was so tall
You saw it for miles ’cause then all else seemed small
And all through its years as it carried our load
The Green roared under its grated metal road.

As the rains of the Northwest fell as it must
The modern steel T Bridge began to grow rust
And its girders and braces began to grow aily
Of the semi-tractor trailers that it carried daily.

New bridges were built to help ease T Bridge’s pain
And everyone knew one day it would never again
Be able to shoulder our burden and strife
And respite, not detour, to a happier time of life.

So man who built T Bridge thought best it go down
Hastily rather than subject humanity to drown
In the Green that flow’d ‘neath it for 99 years
Yet today its flow is filled with many shed tears.

T Bridge that carried both our pain and our joy
Now waits for those who built it, those also to destroy
The concrete roadblocks its tombstones they are
Hast thus stopped its last walker, biker and car.

We peoples have grown to appreciate less
Of why we are here and what made us best
It may be T Bridge that brought us together
But it was love of each other that we brought over it forever.

So let us remember every little bridge that we take
Leads to a story that we all have to make
For the past is just the present and future to be seen
Just like T Bridge, a memory o’er the Green.

– Peter Di Turi