The Cartographer's Art

Ley lines     What remains  are the maps,  laying, like ley lines,  the journeys of men   who have died,  or simply disappeared;     the journals   others have remembered,  building the picture  from a few surviving fragments  quoted in the books  of those who followed.     Charts swallow charts,pass on the same fantastic contours -corkscrewing coastlines,pulling out modest deltasinto uncharted seas,and, faithfully,taking eacha little furtheras if a returning sailorwhispered on the home dockthat the journey was furtherthan the old maps had implied. Sometimes,a new hand intervenes,adding an island,peppering, with cities, the board alluvial plainsof a dreaming land;gouging out a fierce, flamboyant river; but even the navigatorsdo not knowwhich of the strange sea beastspreying on the edges of each terrainare the ones to fear; or which rivers will take us inland,before vanishinglike streams on chalkbeneath the walls of the real city,the one that is mentionedin the first accounts?   City Without Seasons  Because the city has no seasons;because the house beneath the downs was soldit is that summer that holds,its days turning at the end of unfamiliar roads,dry and culpable:forever out of reach. I remember the order of things -sloes, leading a rush of starry blossoms:apple, pear, cherry, plum;fountains of white hawthorn flowing before the chestnut;the chestnut opening before the beech; I knew what would flower when,hawkweed along hedges;poppies banking on high verges;rowans reddening overhead:just now; and now,the yearshave rolled to this point,to this impounded summerrooted in another landscape, ghosted by the co-ordinatesof an older map: the hill is swept by trees;the gate is closed.someone else is in the yellow house. Wherever you lie,come out;the city walls are not so wide:you walk my streets,shop in my shops wherever you are,come out. Daylight shrinks;leaves gather;along the old drivecrocuses bloomwith tiny purple wingslike birds escaping south. The city calls down long dark evenings,faces flash-frozenin the street. Wherever you are,come out It is time,It is time.   Forgotten Bounty  It stays -that memory of flying once – vassal states break free,daring all. The new frontiersare all the News reports.Journalists speak of citieslost decades ago;forgotten routes reopen,fresh boundaries framethe unsurvayed new nationsrising from the blank expanseof disregarded maps. Although the same autumn bonfiresmoulders at the edge of the Hyde Parkit is all changed: the unending summerhas taken us from early lighted roomsdrawn us outinto a world we thought we knew,and have to learn again. I saw youbecause it was too early to go homebecause the party before was dullbecause I chose that place, randomly, and it is always the ease I remember;the easeand your voice moving us on. All around the city dims,shrinking space before usto a single routeremembering the older roadsthat lie beneath the asphalt.   All Night Now all night longbeside you burnand fold the frozen stars away;the silver night,secured and safe,floods out across my dreams; within my armsagain you turn -the sweet grassand the silent sky -and all forgotten bounty breakswithin the space we lie.   Now It Is Cold Why go, now it is cold?Already the street lights burnand the park gates are fastened;stay. The air is still;the distant traffic rounds invisiblyin cold blue lanes below;  here,our fingers movefrom arm to face,from lip to ear,reading like blind men,reading. Behind these blindsthe distant worldis flat and closed; stay.   Learning By Letter Learning by letterI link the points of your life,the picture growing weekly,cards, tapes, scraps of paperdispatched, received weekly,postmarking the route we take,laying down a sensethat we had metbefore we learntthe adult arts of camouflage. I lean against youcaught by the reboundingdifferences of image,a long lost freedomreturningon forgotten tidesflooding the recent landreassigning old boundaries,throwing out links like landing ropesuntil the dreaming jetties fill.   The River  Alone in the houseI see the river as a late traveller might,a winding path cutting through low hills. Colours change with an unreal haste;you do not see them movebut where before it was blue,now it is crimson;where it was whitenow it is gold. Shadows surface from shapes,trees fall out of focus. It is colder. Night binds the leafy lawns;birds seek out a placeon bare boughs. Behind the sirens of occasional bargesit is quiet; smoke rises in thin blue columns. The sun has sunk behind the hillsleaving a smudge of pinksilhouetting the old forestwhere kings have hunted,waged wars, built places, gone,leaving this a...

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