HAPPY TRAILS

Early on I learnt that
The territory does not necessarily
Conform to its representation…
That there’s more going on
Than meets the eye…

As a simulacrum of a complex reality
Maps are easy to manipulate, essaying
An objectivity they can never possess.
Theirs is a gaslit twilight that purports
 A reality they can never match. 

This simple truth has been established
In one declarative sentence:
‘The Map is not the Territory’.
But although pallid and
Untrustworthy, maps are useful.

Maps are subject to propaganda
And deceit yet remain irresistible
In describing an abstract picture
Of a chimerical reality - just
As a star chart maps the heavens.

The first geography I studied
Was Ordnance Survey maps
That rendered the U.K. countryside
At one inch to the mile, a scale
That provided excruciating detail.

They were first produced  as a
Defensive measure during the
Napoleonic Wars, which threatened
To engulf the British Isles in the
Late eighteenth century. 

This documentary response to
Existential danger contrasts with
The concrete solution proposed
By Eisenhower who began building
The Interstates during the Cold War.

In the seventy years since
They have been woven through the
 Patchwork of the forty-nine states
And hold much of my sensory
Understanding of this vast country.

They are wayward expressions
Of Westward expansion, trade routes
Cattle drives, Indian hunting trails
And now international commerce
Between the U.S. and its borderlands.

Initiated at a time of great fear 
Of a Soviet invasion they are 
Mirrored in complex air-traffic routes:
Together they stifle localism, regionalism
High speed rail and common sense.

They have eroded a sense of place
Because diversity has been replaced
By replication according to the mores
Of marketing, fashion and entertainment…
They deny us the sensuality of difference.

Maps, though presented in new media
Present the stolidity of continuity:
The bland conservatism of ‘God’s in his
Heaven, All’s right with the world…’
The whitewashing of a crumbling reality.