Where the Map Begins

This is not
any map you know.
Forget longitude.
Forget latitude.
Do not think of distances
or of plotting
the most direct route.
Astrolabe, sextant, compass:
these will not help you here.

This is the map
that begins with a star.
This is the chart
that starts with fire,
with blazing,
with an ancient light
that has outlasted
generations, empires,
cultures, wars.

Look starward once,
then look away.
Close your eyes 
nd see how the map
begins to blossom
behind your lids,
how it constellates,
its lines stretching out
from where you stand.

You cannot see it all,
cannot divine the way
it will turn and spiral,
cannot perceive how
the road you walk
will lead you finally inside,
through the labyrinth
of your own heart
and belly and lungs.

But step out
and you will know
what the wise who traveled
this path before you
knew:
the treasure in this map
is buried not at journey’s end
but at its beginning.

-- Jan Richardson (1947- ) American Methodist poet, artist, writer, and liturgist, from the Painted Prayerbook

Image: Babylonian map of the world, one of the oldest maps in existence