Landscapes of the Mind

We leave the womb, that place of warm safe-keeping, and arrive to face our would-be lives with nothing but a body and a landscape, ready-made but needing to be seeded It's a pristine, faintly gleaming table of the mind. Seeds of knowledge sown, like clockwork, quickly grow, nourished by the light or even by mere shadows of examples and fostered by a daily rain of practice. Saplings soon arise in normal, fertile minds. How the woodland shines when it’s enlightened! Time passes. The trees of each soul’s forest get taller; some get statelier. . .but all get old. What mystery it is to me why some who wish to keep their woodland strong are met with great misfortune. A parasite attacks, and one by one, their trees succumb. Soon each mind of these unfortunate souls regresses to a time when it was but a primal vacant landscape with this exception. . . the terrain is only rocky barren soil. I wonder if they see in their last earthly moments the glimmer of a brand new gleam on their horizon. June 29, 2020 for Strand Completely New (3) Any Theme Any Form Poetry Contest