Edge of the Road
| Pastureland is God’s notion. Inspiration of the heart, free and wild and alive. Endless acres of weeds and wildflowers wave an invitation in the breeze. Come. Distant rambling fencelines of fir and sugar maple and birch. Monarchs. Dragons and damsels and bluebottles. Olive, crimson, rose, ochre, orchid. Gaze. Rolling swells of matted grass wash over humps and lumps and hollows of mud. Lumpy bed, soft and damp. Lie down. Rest. Beside still water. Drink deeply. Who is whispering in the trees? Cicadas buzz, raven yells, mourning dove sighs. Listen. Slugs and snails and earthworms out of sight. Gray vole slips quietly down his tunnel in the invisible city. Appearing and disappearing, growing and dying. Feel. Be still. |
Country road is man’s idea. Construct of the mind, engineered and systematic. Direct route. Straight and narrow. Solid and stable and predictable. Fifteen feet of crumbling asphalt. Measured and aligned. Black and white, or just all gray. Two fat strips of old white paint crumble too. Stay between the lines, away from the slippery slope. Be safe. Hard and grating, wearing down my sole. Hot and dry, I thirst. Machines made this road for machines. Machines bleed drops of motor oil and grease and rub them in, a permanent stain. Winding rivers of rubbery tar seal the cracks where winter has tried to take the road apart and put things right again. Old Ford pickup roars by. Face traffic, stay at the edge or die. Roadkill. Flirt with the grass, but don’t kiss. Just glance. It’s easier to walk on the road. Hurry up. |
There are 1 Comments to "Edge of the Road"
Amen.
And yet the illustration is bigger than this… Pastureland is not God’s only invention. It is not his only mood. Think about islands, oceans, deserts, ice bergs, mountain cliffs, plains, volcanoes, caverns, planets… We llok for boundaries between these…. They are there, but they resist simple explanation.
Where exactly does the ocean meet the land? It depends on so many things. Time of day, the wind, the moon, the grains of sand, the child’s sand castle…. Any yet we can say “here”. We lose the truth in the details.