Thursday, July 29, 2010

Can A Word Be Mapped

["can a word be mapped"
-Dr. Maureen O'Neill, from her website "map passion"]

testing the acoustics in my last cathedral

I folded up the petal of a song
into my best pocket

like a map only clouds configure-

not to scale
I wander and

I wonder why

the sun is leaking light and
I'm afraid-

already the wounded images are

in hiding and "nowhere" is written
large across the sky

though not in script of gold

can a word be mapped?

or will it fly like a color wheel
falling off a sunset sky

or like a ghost ship sailing

on no water

it's the marbled music I

can't find anymore
no matter how I try

since moving from an old neighborhood

though I
cast my Mercator net

so wide so wide

from the mark
that distance cannot measure

can a word be mapped

or must we live
blind and deaf to music

in the end

wondering where the poets went?
ceding their diamond letters
one by one-

mary angela douglas 29 july 2010