Hic Sunt Dracones
drawn on ancient maps
meant sail at your own risk
to these uncharted realms.
So we-the-cautious learned
to watch where sidewalks end,
stay on roads with yellow bricks,
and leave white pebble-stones
in pathless woods
to show the way back home.
While gatekeepers of good fortune
all with daunting names…
Indecision and Timidity,
Loss-of-Initiative and Cost…
lurk…prowling there
on shores of our intent.
Bonnie Marshall
Proem... 
Here’s to sailing into uncharted territory, to risking, to finding the courage to leave safe harbours behind…
I’ll raise a glass to that!
Charming and thought provoking. I ran away from home when I was 15 to take on the world now I like nothing more than being at home with my comforts.
And all the better for it.
I love this poem. At first I thought about Naomi Novik’s wonderful series, ‘His Majesty’s Dragon’ but then the poem became so much more.
I was just checking this out again thought I’d leave you this
I want to be among those who ventured out
Knowing all the risks that might be there,
For only those who cross the seas
Are those who change the skies.
And I commend you for that. Glad you visit this site.
Again, quietly — terrifying (this is a compliment); also, the lament within those gate-keepers’ names. I remember Rilke writing, in his Letters to a Young Poet, that maybe life’s most terrible obstacles are dragons waiting to turn into Princesses or Princes once they see us, beautiful and brave.
Or, once again to Hamlet, “Aye, there’s the rub.”