The Silent Cartographer | Poem

Don’t you know that you were there, holding the camera that took the picture, that captured the moment, that halted time?
Don’t you know that is was you who captured the artist?
It was you who stopped the earth’s movement.
It was you who stilled the pond.
You slowed the sway the of the sweeping leaves on the silent trees.
You captured the artist in that moment.
You captured that moment
Of the author, of the muse.
And, you, the photographer…

Or are you a cartographer?
Is every picture a point on a map?
Is every image a place we can tap on that map and say,
“Remember? Remember? Remember?”
I remember, I do. 

Where to next, cartographer?

Oh. . . 
But how can this be? 
The places we have pointed to,
I’m not near you, and you not me.

[Vile now]
“What is this?
What game is being played?
Must we go our separate ways?
Could we both not have stayed?
But what about the pond,
The trees, the leaves that swayed?
What about the artist, the muse,
The photographer?
This news,
It seems, comes from a place unseen.
I’m not quite sure if these ties cut can be clean.

But who am I to judge this scene?
I am merely the artist who now sits serene.
Or am I even that, the one who makes art?
It is you who has captured this, all from the start.

Photographer.
Cartographer.
The Artist unseen.
All of these things have left me unclean.”

[I am made unreal]