The Map-Worm

The Map-Worm

There’s a bookshop down the street, where the bookworms tend to meet;
each one of them is on a similar mission.
Where each is searching through, piles of books, both old and new,
always hoping that they’ll find that first edition.

There’s a box of cartographic, full of dust from passing traffic
each map has extra creases to its face.
No longer being needed, for the days have long receded
when explorers carried them from place to place.

Old fingerprints still showing, the way that they’d be going
past viewpoints that might lead to hidden glen.
Each picnic place we find, by the tea-stain left behind
as we follow in the footsteps of these men.

Up mountains maps have hiked, in panniers they have biked.
In any weather, sunshine, snow or rain
For even soaking wet, these maps never failed to get
intrepid travellers there and back again.

But for all the tales it’s told; every tear and every fold,
it’s use today is for the likes of me.
For I have a fascination for each by-way, each plantation;
a work of art whose beauty I still see.

Though it’s sad I know I must, leave it there to gather dust.
Redundant now, it’s way too out of date.
For we see no motorways, criss-crossing quiet days.
A GPS is now the travellers mate.