Map reading, a poem

This poem was first published in the wonderful Irish magazine Abridged

Map reading 
What, then, is time? If no-one asks me, I know; 
if I wish to explain it to he who asks, I do not know.
-	St. Augustine, The Confessions

Nighttime. A taxi’s at the kerb, 
vibrating with a low-slung diesel purr 
after dropping you here (or is it there?)
Or maybe it’s come to take you… where? 

No matter: it’s morning, the following day – 
or the day before; you’re walking past 
a line of poplars, through the broken gate,
and then along the river path. 

You stop, look back. The river’s gone. No way 
to know what lies beyond that wooded hill.
The trees in leaf declare it’s May; 
the skeletons of dying trees say ‘now; until…’

Your map knows where and what, and when and who, 
but you can’t decipher the legend, can’t 
distinguish north from future, east from past; 
determine where today has landed you. 

Outside, the street-lamp’s orange cone 
picks out the rain, and deepens the dark 
between the unlit, waiting homes. 
The taxi door is opening. Already? At last.