Haibun: This Salt
Naked and unafraid, the salt stretched before me. Once the bed of a sea, the plantless, treeless desert is all that’s left. Gray upon gray upon gray is all that is around for miles, save some striped mountains.
Like with situations in life, there’s more than one way to look at this landscape. Is this gray something beautiful in its vastness or is it ugly in its lack of green or ocean blue?
But, as in situations in life, so much depends on what I want. If I don’t want to be there on these salt flats, then I surely can’t see the beauty in this. If I don’t want to be at work, the day drags on and my completed tasks are sloppy. In both, I’m just a prisoner.
And in both, when I relax into it, the beauty emerges. The vast gray swallows me into peace and protection, giving me miles to see and to feel and to be. The opposite of claustrophobia is the wide open spaces of the desert. It becomes an unforced beauty, as it can be in work when I honor the task at hand and let the work unfold and take me on a journey.
salt stretching beyond
years, sight, and so on. crust grown
summer heat’s been sown.
