March 2019
Tad Richards
tad@tadrichards.com
tad@tadrichards.com
Note: I am probably like everyone else who got this assignment--nonplussed. No way I could choose a best poem. But this is a poem that's been around long enough that if I were going to stop liking it, I would have by now, and it's the first poem I thought of. Afterwards I thought of others, but this was the first, so I'm going with it.
It came from a misreading -- Ms. (Artist) goes places in her work where the only map is the map of the bear. Then I realized that wasn't what was said at all. She goes places where the only map is the map of the heart. And I realized, further, that I wasn't very interested in places where the only map is the map of the heart, if there were also places where the only map is the map of the bear. Those were the places I wanted to go
I didn't know where they were when I began writing. I wrote to discover them. I sort of knew that the map of bear was the wilderness mapping itself, and I that was an almost inconceivable concept--I might have thought of a Zen koan, if my mind worked that way.
The repetition, the tracks crissscrossing themselves, happened. I didn't plan it. But I couldn't get away from it, and I gave myself up to it. The formal structure, with the rhyme, happened in the first stanza, so I kept to it. The walking enjambment, breaking what became the refrain line in a different place at the end of each stanza...I must have realized that was happening by the end of the second stanza, and i must have decided to work with it at that point. Which meant at that point I knew how long the poem had to be: until the whole line resolved itself again. Which felt right, too, just about the right length to sustain the overlaps.
And it still feels right. So I'm ok with putting this forward as my best. I'm still glad I wrote it, and I still feel I reached a little beyond myself...maybe to those places where the only map is the map of the bear.
It came from a misreading -- Ms. (Artist) goes places in her work where the only map is the map of the bear. Then I realized that wasn't what was said at all. She goes places where the only map is the map of the heart. And I realized, further, that I wasn't very interested in places where the only map is the map of the heart, if there were also places where the only map is the map of the bear. Those were the places I wanted to go
I didn't know where they were when I began writing. I wrote to discover them. I sort of knew that the map of bear was the wilderness mapping itself, and I that was an almost inconceivable concept--I might have thought of a Zen koan, if my mind worked that way.
The repetition, the tracks crissscrossing themselves, happened. I didn't plan it. But I couldn't get away from it, and I gave myself up to it. The formal structure, with the rhyme, happened in the first stanza, so I kept to it. The walking enjambment, breaking what became the refrain line in a different place at the end of each stanza...I must have realized that was happening by the end of the second stanza, and i must have decided to work with it at that point. Which meant at that point I knew how long the poem had to be: until the whole line resolved itself again. Which felt right, too, just about the right length to sustain the overlaps.
And it still feels right. So I'm ok with putting this forward as my best. I'm still glad I wrote it, and I still feel I reached a little beyond myself...maybe to those places where the only map is the map of the bear.
The Map of the Bear
The only map is the map of the bear.
Your best hope is to follow it closely,
Closer than dogs. It's engraved with your spoor,
You wake in the night to find it partly
Charred by the dying fire. The only
Map is the map of the bear. Follow
It closer than dogs. Your best hope is
To read the part engraved below
The surface of the fire. Sleepless,
You move by night. The only map is
The map of the bear. Dogs know,
That's why they follow with no hope
The dying spoor. You're passing through
Fire, you've passed through sleep,
Now the only map is the map
Of the bear. Now hope gives up
Its secrets, now you follow where
Dogs won't go, even in sleep.
Above, the route's engraved on fire.
The only map is the map of the bear.
Oh, and long after I finished it, someone pointed out to me that there is a map of the bear, in the heavens: Ursa Major. I had not thought of that at all. But I like it.
© 2018 Tad Richards
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