My name is Cathy Smith Bowers, and I%u2019m the current poet Lauriet of North Carolina. I always begin a poem with what I call an abiding image %u2013 an image that has hooked me, and will not let go. And I always sit down with that single image and write into the mystery of all of the layers of uh, metaphor, meaning, that might be in there. This particular poem that I%u2019m going to read began in a little restaurant in Nova Scotia. I was having lunch with my friends and husband and the restaurant was called the Compass Rose, and I happened to casually mention that I didn%u2019t understand the big deal about a compass since it could only help you if you were traveling north. And my friends who were shocked at that revelation began to explain to me how indeed a compass works and that it can help you no matter what direction you%u2019re traveling in. By the time I finished the poem, the restaurant was gone, Nova Scotia was gone, the husband was gone, and this was the poem that came out of that abiding image. It%u2019s called %u201CThe Compass.%u201D
When father finally packed his bag and left one Sunday after mother called him a derelict.
I looked up the word in Funk and Wagnall%u2019s and finding that it meant an abandoned ship, thought how alike we were
Always dreaming of traveling.
Free. Sailing out of that dirty mill yard
Columbus and Vespucci, searching some secret passage, lands of spices, diamonds, gold and silver.
The startled natives bowing as if we were gods
Next day in science class, Mr. Hansen gave each of us a compass to keep
Tried to teach us north, south, east and west
But when he said the compass always pointed north, my face fell
I glared at him the rest of the period, wondering who in his right mind would always want to go north?
An uncle had been there, had warned me about the place where they mugged you in broad daylight, talked funny, don%u2019t understand real English
I took the compass home and put it in a drawer beneath the gown that mother was saving for when she died.
That night I dreamed of China and Rome
Those pink and orange countries in my geography book
Flat, paper mountains my fingers could easily climb
Oceans calm beneath the safe ship of my hand
In the middle of the night when I got up to pee
I found my father slumped, a sunken steamer across the couch
His suitcase leaning against the table like a terrible anchor
I went back to bed, clutching the compass I had dug from the bottom of the drawer
Its smooth glass sweating in my hand like a flattened globe and changed my mind
Began planning that slow journey north
