For seven days,
The birds called out to one another,
“ Is it your turn to map today?”

Day 1
On the first day
The great hawks,
Spreading their wings,
Sped into the sky.

Flying high above the earth,
They sought out mountains, valleys, and waters,
At each new converging point
Dropping a feather to mark the spot.

If one stands now on Mount Meru,
One can see these giant feathers,
In the shapes of hawks,
Circling the globe.

Day 2
On the second day,
The pigeons decided upon their plan,
Cautiously,
Delicately.

Their task was to map out
All the rose bushes in the world,
Recording their colors,
And their songs.

By dusk they had softly gathered together
This map of songs and colors,
Which now floats above
The Map of the Heart.

Day 3
On the third day, it was clear
That the ravens were interested
In only one thing:

To find the sources of all the rivers
And mark them with incandescent paint,
Which they carried in their beaks.

At night,
Viewed from the sky,
All the river sources
Glow in the dark.

It is said
That if one looks down from the Rim
Onto the River of Molten Silver,
One sees the beginning of
A broken river of light
Circling the world.

Day 4
On the fourth day,
The wild parrots took it upon themselves
To find
Every language in the world.

From village to village,
Town to town,
And island to island,
They recorded conversations
As they echoed through the air.

These recordings, now housed in the Library,
Are interrupted occasionally
By the shrieks of birds
From outside the windows of the building.

Day 5
On the fifth day,
Holding fragments of the Map of Shadows in their beaks,
The geese sought out the Land of the Inbetween,
Determined to record meticulously
The shadows of its sounds.

With Magnifying Glasses in hand,
Children visiting the Hearing Stations
Can read the shadow maps
Cast by the sounds that day
Of the Land of the Inbetween.

Day 6
On the sixth day,
A great band of seagulls
Was seen headed toward the North Pole.

Battling ice and fear,
They mapped the memories
Of those who had died there.

Returning to the southern continent,
They brought these cold memories
Into the sheltering warmth
Of the Library of Maps.

Day 7
Alone, beginning on the seventh day,
The Squawk Bird
Flew around the world,
Again and again,
Looking for more of her own kind.

At last,
Despairing of this search,
She sought out other solitary presences,
Eventually gathering together
A motley group of birds.

It is they
Who taught the Children
To sing the world into being again.

It is they
Who yearly tend to the Great Nest
In the Garden of the Library.

by Moira Roth
Written 01/20/02