The Abbott's Anni Mirabili

In thriving arts a long time had geography widely grown,

A broader world yet smaller, pettiness as expansive as a continent.

Vision decayed to a skeleton, the fragments of appetite shown,

The restless, banging bones of men and women made content.

Across the world, every nation like Iowa City become,

Aroused by idle speech, invisible omen, the smell of Maid Rite,

Armies fighting, not with sword or spear but objection to some

Shaded insult shared at home, every home, against the alien in flight.

Was it not for signs and wonders that the lord of hosts made me?

Was it not for maps? Googled maps? Long, long essays and maps?

Was it not to count the primary exports and to name each tree?

Was I not placed here, and Kathmandu and West Branch to bring justice between naps?

Aye, I am slave to nobody, master of all and victim of a very several few.

This is my year. You will hear from me and see me this year.

You will receive my books in boxes and unburden yourself as I do.

This will be a year remembered, carefully annotated without fear.

I see the world, from cacao orchards among the Yoruba and in Java

To the fishing boats behind Coralville dam and the puppies following men

Yipping in tongues of Hausa and Swahili and Czech and Ali Baba,

I draw the whole of habitable land and drillable sea and name it twenty-ten.

GEOGRAPHY, n. The study of the fixed Earth's moving parts.