The Cartographer's Dilemma

day by day

i write the sigils that form our world

my ink-stained fingers

gripping the quill i use

to delineate land from sea

italy from france...


i know the world round

intimately

and the compass rose is my seal



yet when it comes

to sailing the wild oceans

contained within my heart

or scaling the lofty heights

to which my soul aspires

i find myself

utterly

lost

Reviews

[Nobody.]

beautiful irony. draws maps; paper worlds, but gets lost in the real world. This is a multi-layered write. It really speaks to me as a poet...write thought-provoking, heart-rattling poetry all day...but I'm at a loss for words when I live the poetry.
Great write! Made me examine myself. Great gift.
Cheers!

[Amberlight]

Hi Jenn, love the physical formatting of your poem - I love maps and saw the title. Thanks. Very new to this site just learning the rules

[Sweet_pale_cacophony]

Beautifully expressed...sometimes the macrocosm in our heart is hard to grasp of and understand than the world at large...how do you always keep getting better :)

[Creepy Swine Guy]

Wonderful use of irony here and much like "The Way Things Are" your subject admits to a bit of self doubt ... or introspection. This is a very universal thing that we all go through and you write it very well.

I'm not going to give you the lecture about punctuation. You know how I feel. [Grin]

[Robin]

fair warnin' , thar be dragons there ...

excellent write , nice pen

[Crowley]

The title is wonderful and point and dilemma finely placed. Who else but you could put this kind of face on the feeling of being lost in certain situations. This was elegant and sad, but very real at the same time.

[Gandré]

ahh I see, you already are around here for so long, and I didn't know you...(I've seen when Ron posted his his review).
oh I learned a new word "sigils" thanks, you are so brilliant.
Oh I liked this piece about seeking answers when dreaming, and yet, as you indicated, we can't find them anywhere but in our heart. or scaling the lofty heights

to which my soul aspires ---my favorite lines. so wonderful.

[R J Askew]

When I went back to your earliest posts it was the title of this one which caught my eye, engaging my curiosity totally. Your other poems seem personal, but here you seem to create a character to speak through. I love maps and have some 16-17-and-18th c English maps. Just like the artistry of them, the little dolphins and mermaids they sketch in. And the cartouche and other decorative work on them is often stunning. I like the contrast in the poem between the cartographers professional skills and his sense of emootional incapacity ... also the way the last half of the poems forms that tulip shape is most pleasing to the eye ... but the most pleasing aspect is to the minds eye. That being your perception of a person's sense of incapacity. I am sure there are many people nowadays in this pickle. Socially and emotionally awkwards.