Found Riches

I’ll never forget the first time I realized that fallen fur needles, when blanketing the forest floor, aren’t brown but rather dozens of shades copper and gold, with streaks of iridium. Now, whenever I find myself in a nature, I know to look for such treasures.

Spot the glint off a new dime
But look up to the moon through mist—
Her halo reaches out to the reaching ape,
Whose children we call astronomers;

Mulched brown of a penny from your birth year
Is the color of an ancient Spruce, now fallen—
Having breathed millennium’s wind, a life ends,
Yet fosters breath in the day-old saplings;

Curious, a child unclutches green linen
To free the hand for dancing spines—
The prickle of a living sand dollar, priceless
To find a pulse outside your own;

Polished gold and silver monarchs in the dirt,
Notice their shine is never truly bright—
Bright is a firefly in the hug of Summer’s evening,
And the memory of bare feet and empty jar;

When to watch and to listen is to unearth
The white rapids in your spine—
To hear Reality whisper, “Here I am”—
How listless the thrill of found money

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