edgar oliver by ludovic fremaux (c) 2010
The Road
There is a road in Prospect Park that I love. It leads from the concert grove to the bridge over the lagoon. It leads uphill from the concert grove, curving slightly – and then it reaches a stretch that I consider to be a lost place – a place along a road that leads nowhere. If you go forward you will reach nowhere. If you turn and go the other way – you will reach nowhere. Either way along the road you will reach nowhere. This is the lost place. The road crosses it – leading either way towards no place that can be known. There is no turning back. This is the lost place. Here my heart is at ease. Here I am content. Here I wander. This is the road that crosses the lost place.
Sometimes in the summer I sit down in the grass beside the road, stunned by the sun in the grass, stunned into stillness by the sun lying gold in the grass. I lie down in the grass and feel the hot gold beneath me. I cover my face with my straw hat – and feel the hot gold lying on top of me. I lift my hat and look up at the branches above me – at the green of the leaves gone gold in the light. I am content to lie there in the green-gold grass. It is a summer afternoon along the road to nowhere.
edgar oliver 