365 Days of the Poet: Petal 98, "Cartographer of Self"
Somewhere between my mind and my love,
beyond my ego, to the left of my soul,
there is a space;
there is a place that is part nave,
part grove, part museum.
It arches tall, this space.
Its column-trunks curve like ribs
that reach beyond a heart, beyond a dome,
and past the campanile
of this spirit’s bell.
Made of moss and marbled memory,
they stand in what has been
and unfurl
into the oft uncomfortable mists
of what may be.
What mystery, that this place exists
within the less-than-six-feet of me,
keeping itself secret and sincere,
shown solely to my gods
and perhaps the occasional, beloved tourist.
In its wyrd truth
are hidden hints of other wondrous things;
an un-translated pile of postcards,
suggesting the wide, wild worlds
within me, within each of us…
Lately I have lingered
in this large
and sometimes lonely locale,
listening to my own pilgrim prayers,
seeking the Cartographer of Self.
She has been pulling late shifts again,
working someplace lower,
in the hull of the great ship
that harbors in the cradle
of my definition and my wide hips.
At all hours she sorts, she unearths,
she notes: root, line, fissure, leak.
Her headlamp shines in a populated darkness
as she shuffles precious parchments,
searching for dry spots in the salt water.
She is steadfast, making maps of motionless
that spiral in upon themselves, heading again to me.
I push. I try to fix. I fight to travel.
She stills the compass
and plots the ferocity of holding.