Here’s an appropriate poem, for Spring Break, as my son Jude and I will undoubtedly be looking at….Here’s an appropriate poem, for Spring Break, as my son Jude and I will undoubtedly be looking at….
Maps
Carrying maps we move
Through battlegrounds and trails,
Roadways, displays and
Museums built of alabaster
On swamps in cities marked with
European names
Following blue lines, red circles
Street signs and highway markers
Compass points and scale
Measuring distance between places
And distant constellations
That will one day disappear
Slipping into another form
Catching glimpses of the future
Cherished and held in
Our collective past, pressed
Between magnetic pages
Reframed and then…reclaimed
Pulling on my sleeve, he’s
Always looking up, always,
Even when I lose my way
In all cardinal directions
And happen upon a clearing
Beyond my imagination
Where lightning grows quiet
And waterfalls rise
And colors disguise
The reversal of time
Senseless with meaning, always
Perfectly cast together
Doug Hoekstra 