Mapmaking

It's an old desire: a sketch of part of the earth There in your hands. You touch it, saying, There. So make your map: If you have no crossroads, no confluence of streams To set your starting point, you simply pretend You know where you are And begin outlining a landscape, using a compass And your measured stride toward landmarks: thrusts of bedrock, Trees or boulders, whatever Seems likely to be around after you've gone. You fix your eyes on them, one at a time, And learn the hard way How hard it is to fabricate broken country. You go where your line takes you: uphill or down, Over or straight through, Between and past the casual, accidental Substance of this world. Once there, you turn back To confirm your bearings, To reconcile what you saw with what you see, Comparing foresight and hindsight. These are moments When your opinion Of yourself as cartographer may suffer. Your traverse ought to return to its beginning, To a known point, though you, Slipshod, footsore by dusk, may find your hope Falls short of perfection: remember no one Really depends on you To do away with uncertainty forever. Your piece of paper may seem in years to come An amusing footnote For wandering minds, a record of out-of-the-way Transfixions (better preserved by photographers) Whose terrain is so far askew It should be left to divert imaginations Like yours that enjoy believing they've mapped out Some share of the unknown.