Surveyor, 1613

I travel now
by canoe
in the white
unknown spaces
of early maps.

They're populated
with many of the same
hills and rivers,
lakes and mountains,
forests, animals
and twisting hidden paths
as in the more completely
documented countries
I have left behind,
but because I am no longer
entirely confident
of my orientation
to the world I knew
my unease turns them
subtly strange
and discomfitting.

My astrolabe
is long lost
on some anonymous
rocky portage,
and I have
only my eyes,
hoarded ink and paper,
and the crudest
make shift instruments
with which to plot
relative positions
of the landmarks
I deem important,
to impose
civilised rigour,
to draw straight
safe
survey lines
and legendary symbols
to make the maps
that I want to believe
will finally tell me
where I think
I really am.