[Alex Pepple]

Maps and Revelations
                 (revised text in blue)


Dawn breaks. The Colorado carves its way
Through canyon walls into the early light.
Positioned near the edge, it’s breakfast time.
My route delineates zigzags on the map,
While condors inscribe portents in the sky,
Tracing patterns changing with the wind.

The blind curve swerves into the gritty wind
And mocks this route I’ve plotted as the way,
As a rust-gnawed guardrail riding void and sky
Makes my knuckles blanch in bright sunlight,
Beyond the comfort of the dog-eared map—
With vertigo—I hope it’s the last time.

The antique mission bells now warp with time
Where adobe walls dissolve into the wind,
With newfound legends I need to remap—
Of pilgrims who once blessed this sundered way,
Their candles flickering with a leaden light,
To hymns through land expanse vast as the sky.

Now the Rio Grande sprawls beneath the sky,
Its waters grinding at the teeth of time.
I halt, transfixed within its feral light,
My thoughts adrift like hawks in gusts of wind.
The journey veers as the road snakes away;
A guidebook close at hand refines the map.

Who needs the false indulgence of a map
When revelations sear the western sky?
I take the hidden fork along the way,
Past the ghost towns suspended in daytime,
Their histories crying out upon the wind,
And water towers blazing with twilight.

Ahead, a gap looms. Briefly, I alight—
Awareness blooms beyond this tattered map.
Here, mesas lie prostrate against the wind,
And reds of sandstone spires impale the sky,
The spirit journeys through blueprints of time,
Living the truths evolving on the way.

Night veils the road; stars light the fevered sky.
Though the map fades with its fleeting lifetime,
The old wind whispers secrets of the way.

------------------------------------------------------

~~~Second revision ~~~

Maps and Revelations


Dawn breaks. The Colorado carves its way
Through canyon walls into the early light.
I balance at the edge consumed by time—
My route a line that zigzags on the map,
While condors inscribe portents in the sky,
Tracing patterns changing with the wind.

The blind curve swerves into the gritty wind
And mocks this route I’ve plotted as the way,
As a rust-gnawed guardrail riding void and sky
Makes my knuckles blanch against the light,
Beyond the comfort of the dog-eared map—
Into vertigo’s maw with loss of time.

The antique mission bells now warp with time
As adobe walls dissolve into the wind,
With legends never labeled on a map—
Of pilgrims who once blessed this sundered way,
Their candles flickering with a leaden light,
To hymns that echo in a fiery sky.

Now the Rio Grande sprawls beneath the sky,
Its waters grinding at the teeth of time.
I halt, transfixed within its feral light,
My thoughts adrift like hawks in gusts of wind.
The journey veers beyond this snaking way:
For truth, I chart the codex like a map.

Who needs the false indulgence of a map
When revelations sear the western sky?
I take the hidden fork along the way,
Past towns suspended in a bygone time,
Their histories crying out upon the wind,
As water towers blaze in evening light.

A gap unfurls within the streaming light—
Awareness blooms beyond this tattered map.
Here, mesas genuflect into the wind,
And reds of stone spires impale the sky,
The spirit journeys through blueprints of time,
Living the truths evolving on the way.

Night veils the road; stars light the fevered sky.
As the map fades away with the stream of time,
The old wind whispers secrets of the way.

L2: "toward" -> "into"
S1L6: was "Their shadows tracing patterns in the wind."
S4L6: was "For truth, I probe the codex of the map."
S6L4: "stone" -> "sandstone"
S7L3: was "As the map dissolves into the stream of time,"