WordsOut poems by Godfrey Rust  | collection Welcome To The Real World ← 25 of 59 → | home        

Maps

To know the world without maps
with each place relative to every other 

is God’s privilege. Maps are a frame of mind.
To stretch earth’s skin 

on the rack of an appropriate projection,
pinned down by latitude and longitude 

is false security. Courage goes
beyond the consolation of the atlas—                  

it was absence of maps
tormented those wise men, searching between  

fear’s cancer and a capricorn desire,
and drawn towards Bethlehem,  

the real world’s compass locked upon
its passionate, magnetic north.