Line & Colour

Line & Colour

D.S. Martin

The first map you saw   was
mere line & colour   before
you knew to multiply it out into a world  
before a blue curl   could be a river  
& a straight thread   your street  
You gradually heard three little squares
declare themselves houses   & three little trees
go further   & suggest a whole forest  
& the forest to suggest the wild   where lines
lost & overgrown no longer meet
where things you cannot own  
never lie down    confined to a legend  
& the mysteries of darkness
& light   remain unknown
where those trees   those same little trees  
rise high above two-dimensional paper  
to be blown in the uncharted wind  
just as we will be shown  
how the landscape   too   in all its line & colour
reveals far more than itself

---

D.S. Martin
Poet & Editor

D.S. Martin is Poet-in-Residence at McMaster Divinity College. Ampersand (2018) is available from Amazon, or Wipf & Stock, as are his other collections and anthologies. Visit his blog Kingdom Poets and Poems For Ephesians.

Photography by Clay Banks