A gallon jar sits on a dresser.
Cool, clear, green, a little dusty, a flaw here and there
But lovely in its way.
It's filled with pennies, almost to the brim.
Their dates represent many years, some have stems of wheat on the back, strange mint marks, and dates before, behind, and between.
Some glow brightly, fresh-minted, and warm pinky copper, shining like small sunshine in heaps inside the jar.
Something moves.
Something changes.
The jar is shifted, teeters, tips. Pennies fall from its wide mouth. First a few, then a dozen, next a hundred and a cascade.
They roll and flow across the dresser, some dropping to the floor and bouncing away across the carpet. Some lying where they fall. The jar tips farther and farther until it falls right over. The last of the pennies tumble to the floor with a noisy clinking tinkle.
The jar crashes down upon them and splinters into tiny pieces, scattered on the floor.
Oh no!
Where once there was a familiar container full of tokens of value, some prettier than others but all of worth to the owner, there is now only chaos. Nothing familiar. Nothing normal. Nothing right.
Hard not to be daunted by what will be required to make things better.
Not the same. The jar is gone forever.
But at least better.
You may find all the pennies, even if you have to get down on your knees. Even if you must move the dresser and sweep under the bed you will find most of them. You will have to work around the bits of glass, pick them up ever so carefully, and find a way to put them out of your life.
But the jar is gone.
Maybe you will find a new one, clear glass, or perhaps painted with a pretty pattern. Maybe a piggy bank. Maybe you will roll all those pennies, take them to the bank and turn them in for folding money to tuck away in a drawer.
No matter what, everything will be changed when it is done.
Everything.
And that is how these days feel to me. Life still has its pennies, bright ones, wonderful wheat pennies to be saved in the saki bowl on the mantel, shiny new ones fresh from the mint, but they are mixed with what feels like shattered glass and sharp edges, in no clear pattern and with no clear plan.
Good thing there are still birds....or I would really be getting crazy.
I have a rather sophisticated friend. He read one of my poems once . . and said . . . get an agent.
ReplyDeleteMarianne. Get an agent.
What a perfect, poignant metaphor for this very troubling time.
And Honey. That last line about birds.
Our first oriole, wood thrush and Phoebe arrived in the last couple days in central Ohio.
Life- saving.
You nailed it! This feeling that everything is not the same, even for those of us whose lives haven't changed all that much on a day to day basis. But everything is off kilter and we don't know what lies ahead. Thankfully, I have spring flowers to remind me of a Great Goodness that lies at the core of creation. And you have your birds. One day at a time.
ReplyDeleteCathy, you are way too kind. Did you ever in fact get an agent btw, because I wholeheartedly agree with that friend. Your poems and at once sparkling and yet deep and very, very wonderful! Congrats on the wonderful spring bird. I heard just few notes from an oriole the other day, but not a single Wood Thrush yet.
ReplyDeleteJacqueline, I am grateful for the sustaining joy of a love of nature as well as for friends like you who share it and can relate. I find so many tasks overwhelming now, as if I have forgotten how to do them. Taxes are knocking my socks off, so complicated this year. Not that they aren't always complicated, but some new factors have come into play, and it is messing with sleep and peace. But as you say, one day at a time. Take care