meditation musings

My mind is an ocean
full of living things that swim and dart about
full of things that slither and wriggle and float
full of things that are anchored and sturdy.

My mind is an ocean
with unceasing, steady waves that crash on the shoreline
dissolve into foam
and then nothingness.
crash
foam
nothingness.

Empty and full all at once.


--

My mind is a locomotive
racing on the train tracks as
the mindfulness conductor makes her rounds.
Have you paid for your ticket?

One passenger sits curled up in a tight knot
knees pulled up to her chest
with her back to the window and she recites endless strings of numbers
"one point six-oh-two times ten to the minus nineteen...or was it minus thirty four or was it...?
or was it...
or was it?"

One passenger wanders the aisles and searches for the clear box
with the white lid that lived on the porch in spring and early summer
the one with lid that had the precious phone number written in bold black print.
She knows its contents and tells the conductor she'll pay for her ticket
just as soon as she finds the box.
The box with the stethoscope and iodine and shoulder-length plastic gloves
and tubes and tubes of water-based lube.
And she's sure there are other things, important things in that box. What happened to that box?
How can she deliver the babies without the box?
And she tells the conductor that she remembers what it felt like to have her
naked, glove-less arm inside
where it was warm and wet past her elbow
and what it felt like to touch hard death.

The conductor wipes a tear, nods, and moves on up the train to the next passenger
who is in tattered denim jeans and an old grey tank-top,
her exposed skin golden and covered in a layer of grit and grime
sticky with sweat.
She is sprawled out across a whole row of seats
snoring gently.
When the conductor says, "Ticket?"
The passenger responds with a murmur:
"asparagus".

The conductor has nearly reached the end of her rounds.
She knows that some hitchhikers jump off into the endless green fields as the train races on.
She looks out the nearest window and sees
cartoony lambs dressed in wooly, brightly colored can-can skirts, singing a lamby can-can song.
Lamb! Lamby, lamby, lamb, lamb.
Lamby, lamby, can-can.
Lamby, lamby, lamby, lamb, lamb.

The conductor smiles, sighs, and returns to her job
walking
row by row
checking tickets
breathing
being
traveling on.