Cartographer January 12, 2010
I cannot see where the road will lead.
I am not certain I wish to walk upon it.
Yet I find myself drawn forward,
wishing to know the unknown.
If only I could telescope the future.
If only I could behold the imperceptible.
Yet I cannot.
And I find myself perturbed.
I cannot see where the road will lead.
But I can, and do, often wonder
under what trees will this road twist,
through what fields will it silently slice?
I cannot see where the road will lead.
All I can do is walk it.
Alone, perhaps, then again perhaps not.
I am not so bold as to extend a spoken invitation.
I cannot promise where the road will go.
I cannot say what sights will be seen.
I cannot know the future, I cannot see the unseen.
All I can do is walk the road.
One step after another.
The gravel crunching under my feet.
The tree branches waving overhead.
The fields opening before me, plains unending.
Alone perhaps.
Perhaps not.
An unspoken question
hangs in the air.
And I find myself unable to ask it,
for fear of what it might mean.
Implications unending, complications ensue:
longing for a state space transition, but that would never do.
I cannot see.
I cannot promise.
I cannot know.
I cannot say.
I am a cartographer
mapping an unknown land.
And here it is I begin:
upon this gravel road.
I have a pen
and a paper.
One black,
the other white.
And all I can draw
is a single solitary dot,
round and dark upon the page,
and label it, ‘Here.’
That is all I know.
Here is where I am.
The road beckons.
Do I walk it?
I know not whither it leads.
I know not so much.
I know I like not not knowing.
I know I am here.
But that is all I know.
A solitary dot,
round and dark upon the page.
A tear of ink, splattered.
A cartographer lost
in an unknown land,
standing upon a road
leading somewhere.
The gravel winding out of sight,
the trees huddle over me.
The fields still their swaying
as here I stand, upon the road.