you miss the places you imagine

you miss the places you imagine:
cartographic perspectives with a map at its heart

first flutter, vibrating with the world, maps tell
stories which give their form within.

speaking landscapes on slips of vellum breath
we curate stories to spaces elsewhere.

navigating pinned memories, this cache of past,
fleeting moments caught in rectangles of light,

try to collapse the distance that is between us.

memories composed of space, attach to stories,
where mind embraces globe to fit the user.

ambient chatter evokes an ephemeral palette morphing,
with resonance, this experience of living.

maps back themselves into the heart, haunting space less haunted
while real is muted, reflecting a turn of the world.

time is elegant, churning out the where that burns
this overlap of narrative debris, in this

our world, yet very different.

 

All text sourced from: Blavatsky, H.P. The Stanzas of Dzyan. Reprinted from The Secret Doctrine, and Krygier, John. Jake Barton’s Performance Maps: An Essay. Cartographic Perspectives, No. 53, Winter 2006. (pps. 41–50 & 79–82).