Have maps become obsolete?

Ryan reads his poem to the audience at Ruffing Middle School. Photo credit Jane Flaherty

A paper obsolete

Covered in mountains and rivers

Governments line to line

“Rip” the paper turns

Over fjords covering oceans

The paper looking out

Through its lakes

Pages of covered land

Shapes like monkeys jumping in trees

Animals frolicking in the stream

Colors of the rainbow

Never touching itself

Paper on which chess was played

Wars fought

Mans death chosen

Plans made

The world shifts the paper

The paper shifts the world

Nothing put in stone

But left forever

In a relaxed sort of way

A satellite grew from nothing

Which we leaped upon

With child like interest

Moveable lines

Zoom near or far

Looking at everything

Seeing nothing

Paper burned in glass and wire

We blasted the satellite with knowledge

As well as numbers

Monotone pictures hiding life

Showing only earth

Barren but for the blue water

That ever is turning

We don’t teach what we were taught

Only this is that and that is there

The immoderate move of energy

Seeping from a map

Lurid ideas of moving past paper

The paper

Which civilization was born

Ryan A. Sonkin is a seventh grader at Ruffing Montessori School in Cleveland Heights.