Compass Rose

 

Scarves of raucous geese in migratory rank,
or conferring honeybees disclosing clover meadows
rely on the capacity of inborn sense of place.
Pacific Ocean salmon return to birthing streams,
their flashing silver bodies straining with the effort
to propagate the species
at the place of their emergence
into a water world.
The higher order species consults cartography
where compass roses imprinted on a map
show longitude and latitude and prime meridian,
with sense of place in nature’s world…an orienting loss.

Bonnie Marshall

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