Saturday, March 10, 2012

An Acknowledgement to Hildegarde Flanner

The White Bridge is not unique in the annals of American literature, though it may well have been. Just yesterday, a very small, yellowish-bound, but otherwise perfectly preserved copy of a one act play arrived delicately by post from San Francisco. It cost me seven dollars, and gave me, in my hands, the connecting link with my own history. The White Bridge-A One Act Play, written in 1938 by Hildegaarde Flanner. Turns out, Hildegaarde was quite a conservationist, planter, essayist and poet and did some prolific work. Also, the copy sent me has to be rare because it was signed by her as a greeting to a reader. The date also was perhaps prophetic: December 7, 1938.
So, it was with an eerie feeling that I began reading Hildegarde's vision of what I thought was solely mine. Now, those who know my family understand our love for the southwest, indian territory, Alburquerque, and the ever quirky Gallup, New Mexico. Just now i have turnede my attention southwest while awaiting publication of my white bridge. But as soon as i turned the first few pages, i see Hildegaarde describing her bridge as mythical --like mine, as vast, as mine, as white. And the bridge is a connection over a canyon in ...the southwest. Not only that. It involves a crime and newsboys and newspapers and selling the news ... like mine.
I know after reading Herman Hesse Magister Ludi that connections between two events are very likely in the universe of matter. But i am beginning to think that people through history, unbeknownst to each other, are compatriots of the spirit and suffer from similar visions. Hildegarde, by signing her copy to a reader three years to the the most fateful day in American history until, perhaps, 911, was foreshadowing events that foretold of the war ...that spectacle that is so prevalent that is the raison d'etre of my The White Bridge. So thank you, H.F. I wonder, when I finish your play, will the white bridge stand or, eventually crumble to dust like ...that bridge in southeast Asia, over the river ...Kwai.

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