Spanning an impossibly deep gorge
hangs a ribbon-bedecked bridge.
On snowy mornings,
It is a mirror beneath my feet.
When I step across without a care,
It swings merrily in the wind.
And when, with a sigh, I shuffle across,
It heaves and shudders and sinks.
A matter of time, if it keeps step with me,
The sinking bridge,
ribbons and all,
will surely fall.
http://www.futilitycloset.com/2012/12/07/a-letter-home-2/
"It's strange that one does not start to value things until one is about to lose them. There is a bridge from my heart to yours, spanning all the vastness of distance. Across that bridge I have been used to writing to you about our daily round and the world we live in out here. I wanted to tell you the truth when I came home, and then we would never have spoken of war again. Now you will learn the truth, the last truth, earlier than I intended. And now I can write no more.
There will always be bridges as long as there are shores; all we need is the courage to tread them. One of them now leads to you, the other into eternity -- which for me is ultimately the same thing.
Tomorrow morning I shall set foot on the last bridge. That's a literary way of describing death, but you know I always liked to write things differently because of the pleasure words and their sounds gave me. Lend me your hand, so that the way is not too hard."