WELCOME ABOARD, HUGO!

        I am delighted to welcome my friend and Princeton Windrows neighbor Professor Hugo Walter as the newest member of our MINDING WHAT MATTERS team. Dr. Walter has taught at Drew University, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Rhodes College, and Yale. He has published three important monographs and several volumes of poetry. Since 1999 he has been serving on the Faculty of Berkeley College as a professor of English and Humanities. For more information of his impressive background click here.
        As a Special Contributor to MINDING WHAT MATTERS Dr. Walter's first offering is his very latest poem, which will touch your heart, especially if you have ever bathed in the beauty and breathed in the history of Stony Brook Bridge. As a long-time resident of Princeton, I have crossed the bridge countless times, but I'll have a new appreciation for it, after reading the way Hugo has captured the spirit of that beautiful setting.
        We are honored to present to our readers for the first time in print . . .

THE SPIRIT OF STONY BROOK BRIDGE

by Hugo Walter, Special Contributor

Glistening in russet-saffron dawns
Of emerald-gray stones
Hovers over me gently
In a fine mist of jade-lavender whispers
Wondering if his stones are as old
As the stones of Monte Cassino, Chorin Cloister,
Westminster Abbey, Notre Dame, the Alhambra,
Or the bridge over the Delaware;
The Spirit of Stony Brook bridge
Flowing in amber-lambent reflections
And twilight arpeggios of crescent-ochre spells
Flowing in perpetual silences of ancient evenings
Flowing in autumnal tremors of odyssey-divine tears
And purple-ancestral waves of cherry-trancing blossoms,
Wondering if his stones are as old
As the sun, wondering if his stream is
As old as time.