My Son Sleeps With An Atlas
 

My son sleeps with an atlas
under his pillow,
pores over it nightly,
and rises with questions
about Lithuania, Latvia and Luxembourg…
He dreams across borders,
charts mountain ranges at
Asian frontiers, wonders his way
through the history that drew
and redrew those lines that
carve the world up into chunks
of color.
Their neat confines fascinate him.

My own territories are not so clearly divided,
and I am more inclined to know them
through metaphor than equation.
I have trouble with his questions.
When I consult
my atlas of feeling,
a world without boundaries emerges.
The dark lines of nationhood
dissolve,  and the globe spins
unencumbered,    poignant,
a single blue cloud-swept jewel
in the endless blackness
of the cosmos.