Maps are pictures we are told to read,
where read, from German raten,
means to guess or interpret from a dream.
To read a map one must turn it
this way and that to decipher
dreamy roads from landscape.
Sometimes there are words
like "Main Street" or
"Chattanooga"
but the forte of maps resides in their lines and
circles—
how roads nestle among soothing colors
scaling mountains, forging rivers with ease.
The lost must imagine themselves in that foreign, painted world
the cartographer's Oz—where each point relates
to every other point with its own
fantastic application of cardinal directions
—a reminder that we are all
just visiting.
photo: from The Harvard Map Collection
Gerard de Jode's
"Quivirae Regnum Cum Alijs versus Boream"
(Antwerp, 1593)
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=d308acff91544f90af5f1ebdde50549f
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