Maps - Kaleem Omar

https://www.loc.gov/item/95770033

Much of our north is still safe from the exactitude of maps.

The survey of Pakistan has not pinned down 

each water sound to its hidden source.

The movements of the Marco Polo sheep 

are not yet reproduced in dotted lines.

In any life some secrets should remain 

the property of those who need to live with them.

The telescoping eagle drops undisturbed 

alone to its young below the stones of Rakaposhi.

The pitching trail above Baltit wanders 

undescribed, free from the tyranny of tourist guides.

Rest houses are few and far between.

The Neelum Valley still has no safe way in.

This, everything we were insists, is as it should be.

No map can ever sustain the instantaneous 

release the eye is air to when we, 

leaning into the buttock-only climb, 

catch the snow held breath of the meadows at Lalazar.

Only a stray cow and buttercups in sight.

The track through Chakdara is not all weather.

I know the climate cannot retain this quality forever.

Someday giant bulldozers may fill the gaps 

between these rocks

to fabricate the dams necessary for development.

But what develops here, 

will not appease our need for the cold 

of a Kojak wind, footloose 

without baggage beyond Shilabar.

How long, the question stings, 

can we walk the precipice?

Each year they advertise 

one more spot for which a plan is made.

Houses impinge their shabbiness upon the pines.

Would they have even the forests 

of Astor preclude the vanishing?

The national gross may increase, 

but there should be a limit to utility.

Con trails are not after all fair 

exchange for unattended streams.

Already they begin to cut us down 

to the close size of reference grids.

Indifference too begins at home.  

But we must refuse the begging bowl 

of civilized embellishments.  The fall 

of empires worms from within, 

irrespective of the time and latitude.

Few know that Mariam, the strongest woman 

of her day in Balakot, remained unmarried 

to the end because no suitor, and there 

were many, could match her feat of lifting 

a huge stone high before she would allow him 

to speak of possessing her.  Today that stone 

lies on a rough edge base where the Kunhar's 

savage water evens out.  Whatever the Western 

rain may bring, we should mark such names.  

The animal tracks along the edge of Balika 

Parbat cannot obliterate the value 

of our stamp upon the ground. 

But we would breathe a whiter air 

if snow leopards kept their vigil here.  

The routes of Hunza's trees 

may be measured when they are cut, 

but no census will count the poverty of leaves 

per capita.  The mind makes its own weather.  

Nevertheless we hope that Mariam's strength 

will hold its link with each new fanged element, 

what lives too long divided from its origins.  

~Editor's note: I heard this poem on the Library of Congress website and was immediately struck by its directness.  I have not seen it reproduced, so this is my best guess at line breaks and spellings.  I ask anyone who reads it to hold me accountable for my faults, but not the poems.