It’s Poetry Phriday again!

(Images with text, stories and more in-depth posts are returning soon. Mapping the Edge is in the process of moving into a new world headquarters facility, with a pool and an artist’s studio. And a pool. There’s a pool.)

Passing through the main street of Ridgeway, South Carolina on a Saturday afternoon, it seemed as if the town had shut down. In 2010, Ridgeway population was 318. The population was 314 in 2011, then 312 in 2012. The town seems to be asymptotically approaching a ghost town, yet there was life there.

“Elev 625” is painted on the side of the town’s green water tower, which is between the elevation of the popular Carolina mountains and beaches.

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Elev 625

Between mountain, beach
Lies the middle ground of life
Destiny’s midpoint

…

Pass come and going
We stop to stretch and pee
Take times to refill

…

We wait for the rest
Store fronts all stocked dark and closed
Life’s times are spent here

…

We get there from there
By going through a somewhere
No matter our route

…

Red dots on map’s end
Remembered in photographs
But this a felt place

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