What the Cartographer Forgot

The old map shows a river that no longer runs there— the ink still believes in water.

Someone loved this valley enough to name each bend by feel, to press the stylus down as prayer.

Now the road cuts straight through what the river spent centuries learning to avoid.

The cartographer is dead. The valley does not grieve the name it was given, only carries the small brown scar of the road.

What we record is never the thing— only the weight of attention, the moment someone knelt and said: here, this matters, look.