A line on a map
is not a seam in the earth.
This soil does not call itself anything.
It does not answer to borders,
to flags, to the clang of history's
shapeless syllables.
You press a name into its skin,
a mark, a claim,
but what you call it
cannot summon its storms
or hush the rivers spilling
from its throat.
The mountains shrug at your naming,
each peak a silence older
than the letters you stack
to crown it. The valleys
gather the wind's whispers,
keeping their secrets
where you cannot reach.
What is land if not vastness,
unclasped, unnamed?
Call it what you will—
it is only yours
in the maps you draw
to convince yourself.
