The Road

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.

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