Acorns and Other Ordinary Things
Acorns and Other Ordinary Things
Anne Waterman Murphy
If an old woman buys handmade wooden acorns just because
they’re beautiful, she’s going to want a wooden bowl to put them in.
If she finds an artisan bowl of olive wood; unique and perfect,
her frugal New England self will buy a set of four acacia bowls
for a lot less money, even though she doesn’t need the other three.
If she fills one bowl with the acorns and sets it in the sun
on the window sill above the kitchen sink, she’s going to stare
at the bowls she didn’t need and wonder what they could hold.
If she wonders, she will think of all the little things she treasures
from all the places she has loved. If she thinks, she will gather,
and if she gathers, she will arrange little things in little bowls
and place them in the sun on the window sill above the kitchen sink.
A bowl of pine cones to join the acorns, for forests she has known,
and trees she used to climb—for the secret places where lady's slippers grow,
and the hush of her footsteps on pine needles in a Vermont wood.
One for beaches she has loved; Crane’s, Good Harbor, Birch Point—
sand, and clam shells, periwinkles and beach glass, a starfish, a sand dollar.
Memories of the taste of salt water, thundering of breakers on a jagged cliff,
the singing of waves weaving sunlight and lace on a long white shore.
The last bowl for pocket stones from the rocky edges of islands—Wreck Island,
Hell’s Half Acre. For the warmth of them in her hands—their mottled pinks
and speckled grays. For the steadfastness of granite—bedrock worn smooth
by adversity and age. For storms weathered and the promise of safe harbor.
Anne Waterman Murphy
Poet & Teacher
Anne’s poetry has appeared in Christianity Today, Today's Christian Woman, Decision Magazine, Time of Singing, Alive Now, Christian Communicator, Radix Magazine, and others. She serves on the Board of Directors for St. Davids Christian Writers’ Conference, which meets at Allegheny College each June, where she has taught workshops on poetry and serves on the mentoring team. http://stdavidswriters.com/
Photography by Toa Heftiba