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Mapping our worlds
A fine heifer was killed and flayed
so they could draw the roads of all the earth
on it, the pilgrim life. Mappa Mundi:
map of the known world; vellum of the heart.
Geographies and histories, we think
we’ve caught them all in points and lines:
they’re out of date before the print is dry,
before a satellite can blink.
But all our blemishes and laughter lines
imprinted on our hearts are well beyond
the terra firma of this world; sentient
bearers of our souls and minds;
goodly hemispheres of love, of longing;
mental maps well beyond the library of
all known worlds, beyond a Mappa Mundi,
more than skin-deep. Forever mystified
we stumble on, like airy plant-gatherers
mapping the Happy Isles, the life-force held
in trembling material selves, happening
upon our lives as they unfold.