[Matt Q]

Hi Barbara

I really enjoyed this. On a map, the notation "Here there be dragons" suggests a dangerous and remote/unexplored territory. Uncharted. Effectively "off the map". I like the idea, as I'm reading it, that we "fall off the map" and encounter such territory, not in literally distant and remote parts of the world, but in the midst of the everyday. That at times, in the everyday are glimpsed danger/beast and beauty/treasure (perhaps the dragon's hoard), seen as "truer than we knew before". A veil is lifted, the world becomes magical, uncanny and perhaps more vivid too. It is perhaps a sort of revelation ("truer than we knew before"), a seeing through.

I'm left to supply my own interpretation of what falling off the map might mean if I want to "map" this onto some deeper meaning, and I'm happy with that. That "the old cartographers knew we would come to this place" suggests an inevitability, that perhaps it's representative of a certain point in one's life, in life's journey, a certain set of circumstances, an unravelling, or a point of crisis, or maybe the dawning of some sort of (spiritual) wisdom -- there are spiritual "maps". It does strike me that death is one way of "falling off the map", and an uncharted territory, and a place we all must come to, "I don't know where beyond is" would certainly seem to fit with that, so I can maybe read the poem that way, as about death nearing. That said, it sounds like, at the beginning that the N has experienced this falling off, although later in the poem she only seems to describe coming close it, intimations, tells. Anyway, I don't need to impose a deeper meaning to enjoy the poem -- although rereading and wondering about possibilities adds to my enjoyment of it.

I wondered a little at the balance of the two poles (beast/danger, beauty/treasure) as the poem unfolds.

In S1-3 The dog howling and the car screech suggest danger, or a sense of it. At the same time the perception of an otherworldly beauty in the leaves turning gold in Autumn suggests the treasure. In S4, The treasure and danger/beast are reprised, the jewels replace the gold, and the danger/beast, is made more explicit: beasts with horns, potentially fire-breathing, are reprised. (I see an of the echo the cars here, which also have horns, issue smoke, and driven by combustion engines).

In S6-7 the N lists glimpses, intimations of falling off the map. The focus here seems be solely on the dragon/beast, though. The hot breath, the unidentifiable creatures, the air moved by dragons wings, the smell of smoke. It feels to me like the focus has shifted. I wonder if there might be scope for some glimpses/hints of the treasure, the beautiful, here too. I guess though the final stanza may be doing this, with the "wild gleaming" in the yard. Initially, I'd read "yard" in its British sense, but when I read it as "garden", the treasure/beauty reading seems more likely: beauty in nature, echoing the willow tree. So maybe the poem is saying, here are a list of tells: four dragon-related tells and one treasure/beauty related tell. And maybe the shift to a focus on the danger is intended.

A couple of other thoughts:

In S6-7 I wonder a little here at what seems to be the mix of general and specific case. "I have felt" gives us the past, but can indicate the general case. And "air moves only" also gives us the general case. But, in the middle of these two, "I can hear" seems to give us the present: this is happening now. I guess can mean "I can sometimes I hear"/"I may hear", but if so, maybe this could be worded less ambiguously?

Like others, I'm not 100% sure of the close. I'm reading it that the N has found "Hic Sunt Dracones" marked on her old globe (wasn't familiar with the name, but easy enough to google), a mark that wasn't there the day before. I'm not sure why I don't find this as satisfying as I could. Possibly I wonder where it's marked -- it could be anywhere in the world -- so why is particularly relevant to the N? Am I supposed to infer that the mark correlates with where she is located? Or just that such a place exists somewhere? (And is it relevant that a globe has no edges?). And possibly because it seems too obvious. But maybe that's the point? It's intended to undercut the speculation (here are various possible tells) with something definite?

All the best,

Matt