The Explorers

WE are the geographers bringing back reports
from inward Himalayas—
the difficult pass, the bridge the rains have broken,
the snow-peak sighted, unmapped, unclimbable.
But the theodolite bearings, the aneroid readings,
these we note down—
they may help the expedition leaving tomorrow.

The ethnologists recording daily adventures
among unknown tribes,
with anthropophagi met between luncheon and tea-time
in small clans ruled by magic we do not share:
a suburban bus-stop lonelier than jungle clearing—
nothing more strange
than our incomprehensible daily encounters.

Ours the plane-table surveys of the desert,
the mind's intersections
cobwebbing the squared paper of experience,
plotting the rare oasis, the wind-eroded
fantastic rocky horizon black against sunsets—
promise or menace
the warm dawn after the starred night's vigil may tell us.

4 May 1946