A Map of His Life

If we were complete,
If ever, we would comprise
A holomorphic object,
Mapping the set to itself,

Meaning on top of meaning,
The whole sequence, including
Necessary distortions,
Which are essential to maps.

If we were complete, ever,
You could explore us
In the confidence
That every edge led

To an entrance to the map
Through another edge.
We never would mislead you,
And you never would fall off.

If we were ever complete,
You could almost live in us
As we lived in and through him,
A forest inside a sphere,

Enclosed, and yet exchanging
Continually with the world.
You see? We would be a cell
With a metabolism.

Complete we would be
A new kind of map,
Not only richly detailed,
But hungry, moving, wasting.

The day the map is complete
Is the day we come to life.