I Miss Making Maps by Matthew James Friday

  

 

 

Matthew James Friday has had poems published in numerous international magazines and journals, including, recently: The Brasilia Review (Brazil), Dawntreader (UK), New Contrast (South Africa) and Poetry Salzburg (Austria). A mini-chapbook titled All the Ways to Love was published by the Origami Poems Project (USA).

     http://matthewfriday.weebly.com/

 

i miss making maps

 

 

When I was a boy

I was not afraid

of reaching Lands End.

 

I lost myself exploring

the hardback Ordinance

Survey Book of Britain,

 

inspired by the colours,

contours, the way a flat

aerial view gained dimensions

 

in my unmapped imagination.

I drew maps of imagined lands.

The pencil could never catch

 

the dream, but I sketched

views around me: soft hills,

woods with hidden predators,

 

rivers wriggling towards estuaries,

a mouthy coastline and islands,

distant moors on a misty edge.

 

For hours, my unreal maps

and the real world around me

had no physical difference.

 

I hovered above both,

watching landscapes unfold,

hoping to always float above.

 

 

matthew james friday

 

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