notes on an airplane napkin from a recent flight to Tucson

"Somewhere over West Texas...
Houses like track marks on the landscape
Irrigation traces compass circles.
Saline lake beds are drying scabs.
This land looks wounded."

And on the other side:
"When surrounded by nothingness, why are the dirt patches around these trailers square?
Recreating suburban landscapes we are taught to admire"

I remember listening to a radio program once--maybe This American Life?-- about how people get really emotional on planes. It involved an hilarious story about a businessman crying uncontrollably during an in-flight movie starring Reese Witherspoon. I feel this man's pain. I have been know to tear up while reading an article in the free magazines in the seat-back pocket. Apparently planes also give me a false sense of being profound, like when i wake up in the middle of the night and scribble something on a pad of paper and in the morning its just gibberish.