Chris DeLine

Cedar Rapids, IA

Landscapes

Published in Strays.

“I had a book with me I stole from a Hollywood stall, ‘Le Grand Meaulnes’ by Alain Fournier, but I preferred reading the American landscape as we went along.” —Jack Kerouac, On the Road

So much of it has passed through me, barely contemplated and quickly forgotten: The Landscape. How many trips have there been where I was looking out into nothing, when I should have been seeing something? A proper voyeur would lay claim to insight, but instead the experience is simply forgotten. Staring at the page, pretending like the words have any effect, the eyes only motioning from side to side because that’s what a reader’s eyes are supposed to do. With time the landscapes are all forgotten, if they were even considered in the first place.