Map-Maker
With compass and sextant, paper and ink,
Bungaree, Nanbaree, Matthew and George
and a cat and a crew were at sea.
They went sailing and sailing, around and around
in Eighteen Hundred and Three.
The Investigator’s navigator calculated space
by meridians and parallels to draw Australia’s place.
With Tasmania as an island, and Bass Strait in between,
he mapped the coastal outlines with ink like lines of lace.
On an island east of Africa, where dodos used to roam,
he wrote a book, and drew more maps, in prison, far from home.
He’d travelled as a scientist; he’d met Frenchman, Baudin,
but, here to mend a leaking boat, they would not let him go.
The governor of the Isle de France let pirates prowl the sea,
but arrested Matthew Flinders as a spy and enemy.
Around Good Hope, after the siege -
from Mauritius, now British (not French),
back to London, sailed Matthew Flinders,
not knowing his days were brief.
Map-maker, map-maker, making a map,
right ’round Australia, and finally back.
Map-maker, map-maker, thanks for the book,
of Terra Australis and the journeys you took.
Copyright ©
Jeanette Swan
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