CCCLIII - The Compass Metaphor

Poets United has the prompt 'Compass', moral or otherwise.

And yes, I know penguins are at the south pole, not the north.

It's a simile, OK?

The Compass Metaphor

Honestly, the needle swings

And shows the way to head;

Through bad lands or the oceans,

To bring you home to bed.

But unbeknownst to the traveller

There is a shocking inner plot:

The needle doesn’t point to north

But to a more attractive spot.

And there’s worse to come

With this little swinging guide:

We almost never go where it says

But go, tangentially, to the side.

If we always followed the needle

We’d have just one place to go

And see little groups of sailors,

Clumped like penguins in the snow.

This is where that much loved metaphor

Begins to get in strife;

When they talk of a ‘moral compass’

To lead you through your life.

We each develop our values

From the soil in which we’re grown.

True morality’s a pure fiction

And the magnetic pole’s our own.

By looking at our needle

We can sense where danger flowers;

The compass gives us bearings

But the course we plot is ours.

.

---



© 2012   J Cosmo Newbery

---

Print this post