This new map, unrolled, smoothed,
seems innocent as the one we have discarded,
impersonal as the clocks in rows
along the upper border, showing time-zones.
The colours are pale and clear, the contours
crisp, decisive, keeping order.
I have been always one for paths myself.
The mole’s view. Paths and small roads and the next bend.
Arched trees tunnelling into a coin of light.
No overview, no sense of what lies where.
Pinning up maps now, pinning my attention,
I cannot hold whole countries in my mind,
nor recognise their borders.
These days I want to trace
the shape of every townland in this valley;
name families; count trees, walls, cattle, gable-ends,
smoke-soft and tender in the near blue distance.
Excerpt from Kerry Hardie's "We Change The Map"
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