The Cartographer of Rain
The cartographer arrived after dusk,
his satchel swollen with unfinished weather.
He unrolled a map upon the kitchen table
where rivers wandered beyond their names,
where mountains drifted nightly in their sleep.
"You have drawn this wrong," said the widow.
He smiled.
"No land is ever where it believes itself to be."
Outside, rain rehearsed its ancient language
upon the roof's attentive skin.
The mapmaker dipped his pen into darkness
and sketched another valley between two heartbeats.
All night he worked.
At dawn, the widow discovered
that the road to her grief had vanished,
replaced by a footpath winding gently
toward a meadow she had forgotten existed.
The cartographer was gone.
Only the map remained,
and on its farthest edge, in careful ink:
There are countries within you
that no empire has measured.
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