(titles link to the original posts)
Because
words are ghosts
after the death of wonder
and the end of awe
have stopped explaining
and exploring
the beginning of fear.
Hear,
there,
be dragons.
Cartography II
Of course we are all lost. We have been lost many times before. Off course, we all search. We have been searching for a long time. We search for some sense but history proves that this proves nothing. What we seek and search for, time, we will never have, we can never touch or grasp or collect. Still we suck at it like an empty teat and vanish right along with it. .the point . the quest. meets the dragons of the horizon. Some drag that same horizon around like a brittle map. Some scream in the square at passers-by, “Look! Here, where the ocean meets the sky! Here it is! I have found it!” Some look away. Some shuffle their feet on by some loony preaching kingdoms of lost treasures and flatness. We know how these things go. We’ve heard these stories before. Zeno’s been there. His fleet-footed friend is never fast enough. We hurry home, loose hopes like flocks out to pasture, and throw found prayers at the forever locked and stricken horizon. our noses fall off for us we the de- and in- spite of all faces we are not particles this particularity this peculiarity is yet we spin in the same spaceless circles we cannot find our waste precious time searches for what cannot be found without or within (but) what does the searching (we) must be who we are Aren't we that which makes us wonder? Aren't we that wonder which makes us? Are we what wonder makes? Cartography III
we play here
in the fuzziest of maths
our paths diverge from
us even as we are
on the verge of
pushing parallels
until they converge
at the horizon
no conflict of interest
our interests engulf us
and all the world around us
is there really a point
where one day becomes another?
a line demarcating one from the next?
a border in time?
a break in the line?
there are no breaks
only endings and beginnings
endlessly beginning
there is no border between
one moment and the next
a line in the sand perhaps
but this line is
a billion grains of silica
marking the borders of a negative space
where the idea of a line lives
one grouping of grains marks where
one grouping of grains ends and
another begins?
one ending begins and
one beginning ends?
until the sands shift again
~~~~~~
we play here in an endless sandbox
our rules engage us in the
game of rules
the horizontal is always
flat
while our horizon forever rounds
a strangeness of circles
embraced by sand
these grains embrace us and
we forget
our lines
our selves
this sand loves us and
loves for us to forget
this silica wants to make
blue glass marbles
to circle about us
A Prayer Like Gravity 
I like Cartography II a lot – this – (but) what does the searching
(we) must be who we are
Aren’t we that which
makes us wonder?
Aren’t we that wonder
which makes us?
Are we what
wonder makes?
and the part about time in the first stanzas – yes, time and maps and wonder. Good things to chew on.
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Thanks so much for your words and visit.
Greatly appreciated, especially on these compiled “Cycle” pages.
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Was I lost when I came here, or searching? Just exploring the maps – or, in the lexicon of my household, Balboa-ing. 🙂
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Balboa-ing! Love it. Like Rocky, right? 😉
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I have to go ahead and reply, even though I’ve only read it two times. There is so much to be “drawn out” and “demarcated” from this “missing map”–
“Some drag that same
horizon around
like a brittle map”
–yes, this stanza calls to my poem. I’m smiling! Again!
Also:
“our paths diverge
from us even as we are
on the verge of
pushing parallels
until they converge
on the horizon”
This makes makes me think of a ship captain trying to navigate using a an oceanic horizon line, possibly at night. In my poem, the North Star has fled behind the clouds. There’s no system of guidance. It calls to mind “words” that don’t work, lost meaning which we hunger for. It’s all set up in Cartography I. I LOVE
“Hear,/there,/be dragons”–
the movement of the lines and the ominous tone with the placement of “hear” instead of “here”. It reminds me of a quote I think you shared with me about poetry being related to “inner sound”. A quote I didn’t quite wrap my mind around at the time…..
“Aren’t we that which
makes us wonder?
Aren’t we that wonder
which makes us?
Are we what
wonder makes?”
This seems so central, and reminds me of what you said about ‘The Ticker’, about your feelings about the current culture. And it’s also spinning for me, like a singularity. I love it. The answers are always paradoxes.
And one of my favorite stanzas–strikes me as clever even as it confounds me, is the following:
‘there is no border between
one moment and the next
a line in the sand perhaps
but this line is
a billion grains of silica
marking the borders of a negative space
where the idea of a line lives”
Gorgeous. “where the idea of a line lives”. I love that.
And then:
Cartography III
“these grains embrace us and
we forget
our lines
our selves”
Isn’t this basically our situation? “Words are ghosts”, and our lines in the sand elude us, like demarcations we can navigate by. The words on a “brittle map.” Words elude us, and we forget our “lines” as in a play where the dialogue is pre-programmed, along with our selves. We are actors.
I have always believed wonder, or maybe a sense of “awe” is the most important psychological trait for happiness or fulfillment, assuming people are seeking such things. I guess I am. So this poem speaks deeply to me about that issue I have. I guess you could say “wonder” is one of my favorite words.
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“Hear,/there,/be dragons” : I was thinking about the phrase seen on old maps from when people thought they could sail off the edge of the world but I was going for a re-thinking of that idea–a reassurance of sorts that this exploration is safe, really. And valued. And important. I almost think the lines could be a poet’s call to action. To listen, to pay attention, to be aware of place and space and how sound and language traverse it all, with the final imperative: “be dragons”! Creatures of transformation as the phoenix, as well as representations of our deeper, reptilian selves.
“The answers are always paradoxes” yes! And I feel that being comfortable with those paradoxes, not seeking answers but better, deeper questions, is central to being a poet. That and that element of acceptance/awareness.
I thought of the idea of a “line drawn in the sand” and its idea of perceived (or at least wished-for) immobility (a stupidly “manly” idea) as it relates to how we think of some of our precious concepts: money, borders, the self–all fictions to greater or lesser degrees but in my mind really entirely fictitious, convenient perhaps, but fictitious nonetheless and often dangerously so. But yes, some of the invisible things are exceedingly useful, the maths and lines that are used to navigate. So I think of a map as a kind of a locale for a clash for these ideas…..right on the paper.
I could not agree with you more about awe and wonder. Also central to being a poet. Even as the world burns and crumbles down around us we watch with wonder and awe. Existence itself is the greatest wonder of all and makes all else wonderful.
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Oh and paths and trails also exist in a strange kind of double world–a concept in the mind, a line on the map, but also, after enough traffic, a real, worn thing in/on the earth.
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