Erna Nijman

o girl's dream 2

I walked to a bridge that interrupted the forest path. My goal seemed not achieved. I had been looking for a place to rest, a place to linger indefinitely and reflect on what could never be grasped.
I followed the ditch with my gaze. Only when I had turned around did I see the fen to the side of me.
Clear, shining with sunshine, bordered by trees and shrubs, an essence of silence.
Was this why I came here?
No grass or beach, no furniture made by human hands; only silent solitude, and elusive.
Thus this bridge became a moment of beauty and ephemerality, a moment of moving on or turning, a continuation and abandonment as again and again, and again.