"We are asleep with compasses in our hands"

W. S. Merwin conjures a paradoxical image of humans holding compasses while being asleep, aligning navigational readiness with spiritual or existential unawareness. The compass, a quintessential tool for orientation, symbolizes purpose, direction, and self-guidance. Its very presence in the sleepers’ hands suggests an inherent or granted capacity to find direction, chart a path, perhaps even discern truth or meaning. Yet, the sleepers remain unconscious, their faculties dormant, the compass’s needle wasted in their unknowing grip.

This juxtaposition speaks to the human condition, touching on themes of potential unrealized, capacity neglected, and wisdom overlooked. Modernity, with its glut of information and connectivity, offers innumerable means to find bearings – ethical, spiritual, pragmatic – but the act of navigating requires wakefulness, a presence of mind and soul. Merwin suggests there is a disconnection between what humans possess (the compass) and their state of awareness (sleep). The world may place instruments of direction, insight, even redemption within reach, but unless one is awake, these tools remain inert, their promise unfulfilled.

The phrase evokes a gentle but stinging critique of complacency or distraction, speaking to people lost in routine, habit, or social narratives. It can be read as a meditation on how individuals and societies have within themselves the mechanisms to seek transformation, yet are stupefied by comfort, conformity, or inattention. The sleep is not only literal but metaphoric – a spiritual or existential slumber that renders people oblivious to their own power and responsibility.

Merwin’s line resonates through the ages: the potential for awakening is ever-present, the compass forever in hand, but the outcome hinges on consciousness. True direction is found not in the mere possession of tools, but in the willingness to rouse, to look inward and outward, and to walk deliberately toward meaning.