Land lies in water; it is shadowed green. <br />Shadows, or are they shallows, at its edges <br />showing the line of long sea-weeded ledges <br />where weeds hang to the simple blue from green. <br />Or does the land lean down to lift the sea from under, <br />drawing it unperturbed around itself? <br />Along the fine tan sandy shelf <br />is the land tugging at the sea from under? <br /> <br />The shadow of Newfoundland lies flat and still. <br />Labrador's yellow, where the moony Eskimo <br />has oiled it. We can stroke these lovely bays, <br />under a glass as if they were expected to blossom, <br />or as if to provide a clean cage for invisible fish. <br />The names of seashore towns run out to sea, <br />the names of cities cross the neighboring mountains <br />-the printer here experiencing the same excitement <br />as when emotion too far exceeds its cause. <br />These peninsulas take the water between thumb and finger <br />like women feeling for the smoothness of yard-goods. <br /> <br />Mapped waters are more quiet than the land is, <br />lending the land their waves' own conformation: <br />and Norway's hare runs south in agitation, <br />profiles investigate the sea, where land is. <br />Are they assigned, or can the countries pick their colors? <br />-What suits the character or the native waters best. <br />Topography displays no favorites; North's as near as West. <br />More delicate than the historians' are the map-makers' colors.<br /><br />Elizabeth Bishop<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-map/
