Writing from the stemistry lab
On the Mappa Mundi
by Marilyn Longstaff
Mixed up among accurate cities and rivers,
a world populated by strange creatures,
like the naked monopod on his back, solitary
leg in the air, using his giant foot as umbrella,
no distinction between natural and supernatural –
factual accounts of fish-men caught in nets
and shining men coming down from the sky.
And somewhere on this map, and in other
records, on the edges of the known, a race
of dog-head men, although no mention
of bitch-head women, like men in every detail
(eating the same food, living in villages,
and wearing the same raiment) save one.
And what exercised The Church? Not the question
of their existence, but ‘Do these creatures have a soul?
Have some adopted Christianity? And so it carries on,
When does life begin? Does a foetus have a soul?
Can we bring salvation to hybrid embryos?