The Thief of Light

Without a map,

without a country,

the man stole it

and no plants grew.

Nothing rose up,

no sight of faces loved,

everything known by feel and memory

only, by sound or the touch

of a hand, the placement of a foot,

being how it was navigated.

There was finally the feel

of a world, the feel

of a forgotten footstep,

a remembered boundary of skin

knowing the way

as sharks know in water

the paths of ancestors,

and the great turtles across land

travel as if all was safe,

and a touch in the street

may be a hand of kindness,

a hand with dreams.