The Young Cartographer

“Daughter,” said my father,

“You will never leave these shores!”

He meant well, I know,

but in my mind I have already left.

Even now I watch him, a small cloaked figure

receding on the shoreline,

receding in the distance.

Even now, my pen draws out my coming voyage,

leaving a stark white wake

escorted by the screech of gulls

and the writhing coils of sea monsters,

and others must follow if they dare.

I stand upon the deck of my imaginings,

bracing myself against the squalls,

against the swell of green water,

against the wave-tossed billows,

against the unknown deeps

that are my surrounding charts.

My pen creates islands, whole continents,

archipelagos and inlets, which only exist

because I have drawn them.

My outstretched hands

span trackless oceans of parchment,

at last to sight a distant undiscovered shore.

Already I have made landfall,

already I am on that shore.

Even now, without leaving my study

I set out to discover this new and unknown land

which is myself.

Painting by Donato Giancola