Poetry
Lines on a map
Straight or sinuous, thick or thin
Black, blue, green, red, gray
Representations of reality.
Rivers, ridges, trails
A winding creek, sparkling in the sun
High cliffs, orange as the sun sets
Soft dirt paths winding through grass
Maps do not show these things.
Roads, borders, boundaries
Hard lines cutting across plains
State and International boundaries making unseen claims
A fence (a wall) cutting up the land.
Lines on a map
Shrink the places they represent.
William Darby
The Stick
My Japanese-lettered walking stick’s
been to the top of Mount Fuji
but who cares?
Fog rolls into the Chisos Mountains basin tonight. Car headlights white
and glowing slice the air. The Solitario Mountains lie silent to
the west like on the Moon surrounding nothing at all.
Here’s two canyon place names from my tattered map: Lower Shut-up
and Left-hand Shut-up.
Come morning clouds boil to life
from a Big Bend Sky Scroll.
August rains. I draw stars above
names on the map:
Sierra Del Caballo Muerto,
Terlingua Abaja, Lost Mine Peak,
Christmas Wells, Cow Heaven Mountain.
Poetry is everywhere.
The dogs are smiling at noon in Boquillas
across the Rio Grande. It’s more than enough.
Roy Hamric
Cenizo
Second Quarter 2009
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