The Upturned Sea by David Dumouriez

When I was seventeen -

For sure more wet than dry -

I flattened out some grass

And angled in the sky.

Reversed, it formed a world,

Sketched out a giant map

That overtook the mind

And gave the eye no gap.

I made out continents,

Saw contours jag and fall;

I plotted compass points

And swore to link them all.

It seemed original

This ceiling-turned-to-floor.

I thought I’d viewed it first;

Now, though, I’m not so sure.

Yet still that image stayed

To round itself like thread.

I never wrote it down

But kept it in my head.

Now I’ve cut the clouds,

By time and knowledge grown;

I’ve visited those lands

And dreamed some of my own,

But curious I am

To what this might have been

If not the work of now

But written by that teen.

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David Dumouriez once won a poetry competition by accident and the memory of it still haunts him. His hobbies include cricket, horology, and finding new ways to avoid talking about himself.