Directions in this poem come from the wrong sources. The speaker consults no phone or road sign, only "a tattered map taped to a lamppost," and the landmarks that follow are leftovers: an "inside-out umbrella / propped against a dumpster," strip malls, self-storage units. Dave Bonta builds a way of finding one's place out of litter and commerce, then walks his speaker straight out of it. The title shifts as the poem goes on. "Bearings" starts as a matter of finding the way and ends as a question of what a person is willing to bear.
The form is quiet and plain. There is no rhyme, no end punctuation, no capital letters at the start of lines, and the ampersands stand in for "and" like small, quick steps. The first stanza is one unbroken run of seven lines, and its verbs are the language of giving directions: "turned left," "continued straight." The rhythm feels like a brisk walk past things that don't deserve a second look. Even the nouns are flat and bureaucratic. "Strip malls" and "self-storage units" are all hard consonants, places built for keeping things, which makes a quiet contrast with a speaker who is carrying nothing but intent. The wrecked umbrella is the neatest detail here. It is a shelter the wind has already beaten, and it hints at the weather to come.
The short middle stanza is where the poem changes. Its four lines have almost no verbs, so the walking stops and looking takes over: "open ground / contoured with corn stubble / a crow on pond ice / the blue trees of distance." "Contoured" is a mapmaker's word, and it suggests the land itself has replaced the taped-up paper. The images are small and exact, and the vowels in "crow on pond ice" are short and cold. Then comes the strangest phrase, "the blue trees of distance." Faraway things look blue, so the phrase is accurate, but it also treats distance as a place with its own trees, something the speaker could walk into. After a first stanza of lists and directions, this is the poem's one moment of real beauty, and it is given without comment.
In the last stanza the verbs return, and so does effort. "I walked into the wind" is a choice, not bad luck, and the hissing sounds of "sleet stinging my face" make the cost physical. Then the drivers appear. They "pull alongside" and "gesture," and the speaker answers by shaking his head, so the whole exchange is silent, with glass between the two sides. Their offers are kind, yet the poem treats them as temptations, the easiest available reasons to quit.
The final three lines are open to more than one reading, because the missing punctuation lets them slide together: "this was where I'd been going / I was looking for a reason / to turn back." One reading is that the sleet and open ground are the destination. Another is that the walk is a test, and the speaker wanted to be given a reason to return, perhaps even hoped for one, but found none worth taking. The line break helps. "Reason" sits alone for a moment, and the poem's last words are "to turn back," the one thing the speaker refuses to do. The poem ends on the idea of retreat while the speaker keeps going.
What makes the poem worth reading is how much it holds back. We never learn where he is going or why, and nothing in the text explains what he is leaving behind. The landscape is not wild either, just corn stubble, a pond and a road with traffic, and the courage involved is small and stubborn. The poem suggests that sometimes you only discover what you are committed to by being offered a ride and saying no.