The Road

Nothing but nature every way you look.  A picture painted by Mother Earth, and not a single vandal’s tag in 180 degrees, right or left, up or down—a picture that invites you to freedom, to wander out into it as far as you like, in any direction you like.

A path leads from one attraction to another.  So does a road.  What’s the difference?  The pavement?  What is it about that road, then, that seems to ruin the perfection?  Is it that its very existence symbolizes that this perfect place is not “there”?, not “home”?, not where you really want to be? Rather only the blank emptiness you have to cross in order to be “somewhere”, somewhere that really is worth being at?

Or is it the pavement?  The pavement that symbolizes the deadly disconnection, the alienation between us and Nature?  The way we avoid soiling ourselves by setting foot on the ground?  Filth.  Dirt.

Or is it the dividing?  Like ripping a gash across the canvas?  Showing contempt for the art and the artist.

Or is it what the road implies—the presence of a competing ego?  First a road, then powerlines, then signs, then junk cars, trash, houses, tracts of houses, cities.