Off the Map

...a kind of conversation that needs no tongue...
— David Malouf, An Imaginary Life


Shuffling in bearskin trousers, his mind
    Burning fervid,
Each hard breath shaping new lyrics —
   Shaggy-haired Ovid.

Love, once his own witty game, is now dragging
   Him after her face, and far over
The limes of his mapped world, the wide
    Final river—

Until, reaching that long-grassed bank, he morphs
    Into the wild,
Singing, Beautiful, careless, sky-eyed,
     Sun-haired Child!

Their tracks become measureless motifs of un-
   Patterned never,
Wind rising, night massing, last sunlight
   Riffing the river.


(Paul Christian Stevens — published in The Raintown Review, Spring 2009)