East

Neddy

FATHER TOLD ME THAT he first began to design wind roses when he was engaged to Mother. As part of his apprenticeship, my grandfather gave him piles of maps to study. And he quickly noticed a symbol on almost every chart, usually in the bottom left corner.

Father told me that the symbol was called a wind rose because it bore a resemblance to a flower, with thirty-two petals, and it had long been used by mapmakers to indicate the direction of the winds. Some were simple and some elaborate, but all used a spear-point fleur-de-lis as the northern point of the rose. He also said that mapmakers would paint their wind roses in brilliant colors, not just because they were prettier that way but also because they were easier to read in the dim lamplight of a ship's deck at twilight.

I loved learning about the history of mapmaking. I dreamed that when I grew up, I would go to one of the big cities and study with distinguished scholars on a wide range of subjects, including maps and exploration. Or else fd be a poet.

I wrote one of my first poems about a wind rose:

The spear points north, south, west, and east,

Wind always shifting, a wandering least.

A beacon to sailors on the high seas,

Journeying afar on the wind's soft breeze.

The best that could be said of it was that it was short.