The Compass in the Stone

This poem speaks from a version of myself I know intimately — the part that finds comfort in small order, repetition, and the belief that care and control can hold the chaos at bay.

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I used to polish silver with vinegar and prayer,

line shelves with lavender paper,

scrub away footstep after footstep like it meant something —

like order could keep the dark from finding its way in.

But one morning, the sky fell wrong.

I could feel it in the rag I held,

in the uneven thrum of a clock that had never faltered,

and though nothing moved, I heard it —

that whisper beneath the kettle’s sigh,

telling me to go where no one had swept in years.

I followed the ache,

the quiet gravity pulling me from apron to shoreline,

where the wind scours stones to bone,

and even the gulls keep low.

The path appeared as if it had been waiting —

wet with brine and prophecy,

and there, at my feet, carved deep into basalt,

a compass that did not spin,

but pulsed like a vein,

as if the earth itself was asking me a question.

I am no wanderer.

I am a woman who folds linens into squares so tight

they might never unfold again.

But I stepped forward anyway,

one foot, then the other,

into a horizon that didn’t promise answers,

only continuation.

This is not a journey of dust and heroics.

It is a slow unspooling,

a knowing that something waits ahead —

not to reward, but to remember me.

To call me not housekeeper,

but witness.

And when the sea rises up to greet me,

I will meet it not with fear,

but with the soft steadiness of someone

who always knew

she would be asked to leave

when everything was finally in place.