Compass
Ninety-seven million years ago something lived that no one has named. It left no shell, no bone, no print. It left tiny iron shapes in seafloor mud: spearheads, spindles, needles, none of them bigger than a cell. Their structure reads both the direction and the strength of Earth's magnetic field. An internal compass, built in the dark for a body that would never see the north it was pointed at.
Scientists call them magnetofossils; they still cannot say what made them
Compass
Nobody can name the body that built them. Ninety-seven million years, and all that's left is shape: a spearhead, a spindle, a needle, none bigger than a cell, each one cut to swing true to a north it could never see.
No shell, no tooth, no print. Whatever lived, lived unrecorded and left its instruments behind, still seated, still pointing.
Think of the work in that. No eye, no ear. A field it could not feel, taken in, turned to iron, laid in the dark, so the animal would know which way it was going.
The traveler is gone. The map outlives it, face still upturned, still reading north.
— If you are reading this, write to me. The first poem is free. [email protected]