#749: Landscapes

You and your landscapes!
Isn’t that a quote from Beckett?
I don’t know, but that’s how I feel
this morning after looking at the
poetry prompt from NaPoWriMo,
after that dream I had last night
about doing a show to which no
one came. When I was a teacher,
I had dreams about failures in
the classroom. I sometimes still do.
But mostly these days I dream
about gigs going terribly awry:
monumental mistakes behind
the drums, or like this one, a gig
to which no one comes, about
which no one cares. I like that word,
landscape. I like that it has many
applications: the scenic (desert,
beach, mountain, rainforest,
regular forest); the general
terrain of a subject or activity
(literature, publishing, music,
food cooking); the formatting
choice (as opposed to “portrait”),
the psychological (fear, longing,
more fear, the stuff of dreams or
nightmares, more longing).
The self talk during meditation
sometimes goes like this:
you’re planning, you’re remembering,
you are momentarily in your
feelings. What’s in the moment?
What’s the landscape of the now?
The birds chirp. The crows
make whatever sound that is.
The sun through the window
warms your face. Your feet rest on
the cushion. And while you try
and fail not to plan, remember,
or feel, you breathe in and out.