I
Letters to the Dead
In the Library of Maps,
There is a courtyard
Called Letters to the Dead.

Here,
The Chief Librarian
Arranged
For computers, audiotapes, and video cameras,
For paper, ink, and pens
To be provided
For the Courtyard’s visitors.

Both young and old attended.

Some wrote with grief,
Others with pleasure.
Some begged forgiveness,
Others offered forgiveness.
Some wrote to those whom they had lost,
Others to those whom they had never met.
Some merely wanted to remember,
Others merely to forget.

The letters piled up,
Until it was hard to house them all.

II
The Old Woman
One day,
An old woman
Came early in the morning
To sit
In the Courtyard of Letters to the Dead.

Clearly she had something on her mind,
But when offered the available materials
She shook her head.
Closing her eyes,
She directed her blind glance
Toward the water in the Courtyard’s pool.

She sat there several hours,
Eyes closed,
Unmoving.

After she had left,
Attendants, as was their wont,
Came to clear away and store
The day’s letters.

The last attendant to leave,
Casting an idle glance around,
Realized something was amiss
With the usually clear water.

In the pool,
Outlined by shadows,
Was an intricate map.

Lying by the pool
Was a scribbled note:
" This is a map of the universe,
At the time of its death."

The woman never returned,
But the shadowy map
Remained in the water
Of the pool
In the Courtyard.

For centuries no one wrote letters to the dead,
But many sat by the pool’s edge,
Studying the map,

Meditating,
Not only on their own death
But on that of the universe too.

III
The Children and the Boat of Songs
One day,
The Children
Arrived at the Library of Maps.

For days, they had been
Carrying
The Boat of Songs,
Sleeping at night in fields,
And by day
Trudging along much-worn roads.

At dusk,
On the last day of their journey,
They saw a huge building on the horizon,
And at midnight
They came to its outer doors,
Closed but unlocked.

Exhausted,
They entered the first courtyard
To rest.

In the morning,
Seeing a pond in the Courtyard’s midst,
They casually placed their Boat of Songs
In its waters.

It is said that children
Who now come to the Courtyard of Letters to the Dead
Hear only songs,
And leave untroubled
By thoughts of a dying universe.

IV
The Chief Librarian’s Visit
Hearing so much
About the Courtyard of Letters of the Dead,
The young Chief Librarian,
Ashes still caught in her hair,
Decided to pay a visit.

Sitting by the pond,
She gazed at the shadowy map of the universe’s death,
While behind her she heard children singing,
And above her
The cry of birds.

Looking upward
(for it was an open courtyard)
She saw them circling
— ravens and parrots,
geese and seagulls,
hawks and vultures.

When she looked again into the pool,
She found the reflection of the Squawk Bird,
Who had come
To sit on her shoulder.

The map had disappeared.

By Moira Roth
Written 7/06/02