Description Red Mite Mappa Mundi
Red mites navigate an archipelago
Of lichens, pausing on each crusted shore
As though making landfall on virgin ground,
Taste-testing the soils, then weighing anchor,
Wayfaring bravely their vertical world.
Each embarks on her crimson voyage,
Traversing mite-leagues by sun-stirred trades,
Here becalmed, there dismayed,
Tangled and sargassoed.
Some take to the cratered land, the stone
Volcanic, ashed with spores, or forested
With moss. Inscriptions are canyons, landforms
Of rest eternal; crevasses in memoriam.
Source material: Observation of red mites on gravestones in Uffington Churchyard.
