08/30/2021 – “The Bridge Builder” poem by Will Allen Dromgoole
The was a favorite poem of a mentor friend of mine in prison ministry, Tilton Carl Carothers. Tilton went home to be with the Lord in July 1996 after many years in prison ministry. Tilton had been in prison ministry a long time.
The Bridge Builder
“An old man, going a lone highway, Came at the evening, cold and gray, To a chasm, vast and deep and wide, Through which was flowing a sullen tide. The old man crossed in the twilight dim; The sullen stream had no fears for him: But he turned when safe on the other side ; And built a bridge to span the tide.
‘Old man,’ said a fellow pilgrim near, You are wasting strength with building here; Your journey will end with the ending day; You never again must pass this way; You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide – Why build you the bridge at eventide?
The builder lifted his old gray head: ‘Good friend in the path I have come, he said, There followth after me today; A youth whose feet must pass this way. This chasm that has been naught to me, To That fair haired youth may a pitfall be. He too, must cross in the twilight dim; Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.”
Will Allen Dromgoole