Only Portions of the Map Still Legibly Survive

28 | Carl Phillips Having had their moment or, if luckier, the better part of a day in the sun as proverbed, it was time to move on. Some died, not because of this, but as if so. Some retreated into the memory of their earlier triumphs, others chose not so much to remember as to fill those in who had never known of said triumphs, having been born so much past all of that—what can history be expected to mean, honestly, to those who have no history, yet, of their own? But the waning of influence is not the same as a loss of power— it doesn’t have to be, said the wisest who, understanding this, found their trust where they’d always put it, in what by sheer definition is all but impossible to argue with, or against: detachment. Look at us now, entering our days no differently than we did before: pity in one hand, for the few who with time may come to deserve it; and in the other hand, an indifference that, with enough practice, detachment leads to, though that was never the plan, not on our part, an indifference we’ve wielded so long we forget it’s there, almost, until something reminds us: gulls scattering before us, say, the way the letters that spell loneliness can scatter, eventually, poetry Only Portions of the Map Still Legibly Survive Carl Phillips Carl Phillips | 29 as if weary with meaning—with having had to mean— from what loneliness really deep down feels like: magnetic, unignorable; why, the waves themselves bow down. ...