The Map Maker

Life flows. The pen starts and stops.

Etching and sketching with small pauses.

The moments the pencil waits in uncertainty are the moments I die.

I am born with action and the pencil follows.

There are few in-betweens in mapping; the pencil point rests and is always prepared.

The minds of men and women over complicate the simple, because they cannot understand the complex.

They run rough trodden over land without consulting maps, driving without direction.

One charges full force running over others and another does not move at all — both are lost.

Stacks of maps are on my desk, more maps than any cartographer ever drew.

The maps are as complex, if not more, than tracing each star to every other on

A night with no ambient light.

A night of new moon & clear sky, blazing full white gold starlight.

Wind whips lash and kiss outside the window, an invitation to wake.

The maps upon the desk flutter like wings preparing to fly, edges separating slightly.

Too many maps to count and they cannot be given or sold.

Each one was drawn with experience, an autobiographical account of animals and people, all unsure to which imaginary category they belong.

Each one drawn and re-traced for accuracy.

Some lines have deep impressions and others are faint.

It feels unlikely that the desk can hold more maps. They cannot possibly extend beyond the edges of what. is already there. It would be nice though to think it possible.

Yet, it is indeed possible and probable they will extend as long as I work. Each map I will make more intricate.

The first maps were the most invigorating to draw.

The legend says that Beauty is kind and Ugliness is cruel.

This thin parchment cannot be burned.

Lines cannot be erased, they only fade.

New lines drawn may be thicker than others.

The maps are maps of emotion.

If you are a maker of maps like these, you understand what I mean.

If this is not your profession, the maps will look foreign to you.

Seeing them, they will hold no meaning or purpose, yet these maps are precise.

Each place mapped corresponds to specific points measured in time and setting and feeling.

Each place on every map drawn after a shift within the eyes.

If you could read these maps all people would unfold before you.

You are on this map, but chances are you could not locate yourself.

These maps I know better than anything else and upon them I rely.

Some places are written in invisible ink and surface when they see their mirrored self.

These maps are neither good nor bad

They are. the way I perceive the world.

I never dreamt I would be a master map maker.

A child, not knowing why, I started drawing as soon as I could see.