Mappemonde Poem by Salvatore Ala

The melting snow sinks into the field
Like the map of an imaginary world.
New continents are being considered
By the master builders.
In the time left, tree branches
Draw shadow lines, like an overlay,
On subsiding expanses of snow,
Isolating snow-blind countries
Whose backshores are eroding.
Model of a declining world, in a world
Itself in decline. This island and that,
These clusters and those archipelagoes
Of floating snow and ice,
Everything we thought we were
A meanderable geodesy, imago mundi,
Equatorials exploding one sun at a time.