“Any any where Rastafari trod
Any any where Rastafari trod
Any any where Rastafari trod
Babylon a follow
Only one place him cannot trod
Only one place him cannot trod
Only one place him cannot trod
Holy Mount Zion”
This quote is one of the two epigraphs for this collection, taken from a Rastafari chant from Jamaica. It pretty well summarizes the philosophy of the rastaman regarding Zion: it is not a physical place, but a metaphysical one. Any place a man can walk on the earth can be, and is, corrupted, making it into merely another part of "Babylon" (a Biblical city of corruption and extravagance, a symbol of paganism and immorality). This Zion, then, must be a place to which a man cannot physically travel, at least on Earth, hence the rastaman's view of Zion as "one place him cannot trod."
“... how does one map a place
that is not quite a place? How does one draw
towards the heart?”
This question is the primary one in the mind of the cartographer, as well as the one at the heart of the book as a whole. The cartographer is trying to map his way to Zion, but that strategy has one major flaw: Zion isn't a physical place. This truth, beyond the scope of science to which the cartographer has diminished the world, is not compatible with his current philosophy, hence this questioning.
“Know this,
that lions who trod don’t worry bout reaching Zion. In time
is Zion that reach to the lions.”
In the penultimate poem in the linear collection, the rastaman gives a "sermon" both to the cartographer and to the reader, summarizing his beliefs about the nature of Zion and exhorting his readers to engage in the sort of life that results in the attainment of Zion: one full of "heartbless" (selfless charity) and "upfullness" (a focus on the good, supernatural things). These are the final lines of that sermon, and they contain a profound truth: don't worry about reaching Zion, but simply do those things that Zion asks of you, and it will find you in time.
