The speaker says we go to the forest, and to other places that teach us through not-knowing, so we can look straight at everything that frightens us. The title, "Primates," hints that this is an old, animal habit: we are creatures who retreat to the trees to face what we dread. The parenthetical aside, "worth knowing / by not knowing," suggests that some understanding only comes when we stop trying to pin things down.
Then the tone turns wry. Our "estate," our property and settled life, is called a bauble bought with trouble, a shiny trinket that cost more than it is worth. The speaker seems a little skeptical of the comforts we work so hard for.
The last image is a pair of compasses, the kind that draw circles, with the mind used to "walk home." One leg stays fixed while the other swings around it, so the thought may be that a mind can range into the unknown and still find its way back. The mood is quiet, thoughtful, and gently humbled.