Map Poem by Jerry Pike

The map to small escapes seems too folded, too tightly folded.
I prise a blunt pleat, see a green road, a blue curling streak,
more green, then a mile of coast.
Those old Hessian maps,
light shining through matrix creases,
now they took you places.
Dream-riddled, archaic treasure hunts,
around cleanly composed villages,
church crosses, inked neat among historic symbols.
Back a yard, you could almost read trees,
smell an orchard by the Morse code track, follow your eyes down a hillside, pull up by the chatter of a guzzling stream, and pay your respects.
Windows down, map to knees, three turns of the Mota-Lita,
while shouldering your sight to reverse, then back up, across a page join, by the sidings. Not steam, you dismay,
but we rebel on into a set mud casting, laying claim as a road.
A distant chalk cliff, incites the throttle, frees up brakes, as we cruise down to pebble-ness.
By a tide swept beach, we dawdle,
I open the glove box to remove an old map,
but it is too tightly folded.