Cartographers

Milton Jordan

July 1, 2021

will sketch contours of the land creating

images of what they’ve seen before them,

rolling prairie and more level timbered land

where people hunted, settled and planted

now and again for generations,

ragged hills and ridges rising above

the erratic course of rivers running

toward misshapen estuaries and bays

marking explored or unknown coastland;

or follow details from transit and line

marking boundary limits carefully

across every natural barrier,

with slight regard for contours or planters,

to support latecomers ownership claims

and fulfill men’s insatiable urge

to square every circle in creation.

Milton Jordan lives in Georgetown with the musician Anne Elton Jordan. His most recent poetry collection is What the Rivers Gather, SFASU Press, 2020. Milton edited the anthology, No Season for Silence: Texas Poets and Pandemic, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2020.