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Only Shells

Mermaid fingernails are meant to be found

by sand drenched children who craft stories on the wind

The kind of slappin’ wind that drips hair in the mouth

And stops sentences from forming on lips

So, half the story is told as they bend to collect wonders that are only washed up thin shells

A magic happens that can not be deciphered or revealed 

With bated breath I witness a storyteller being born

Poem dedicated to my niece, Jessica

After submitting for a 50 word microfiction challenge yesterday, I could not keep the story from morphing into a poem. It is National Poetry Month and the challenge is on! If you count the words of this poem you will see it is not 50 … it started out as such. Now, at 73 words, my poem is complete and makes perfect sense to me.

It is a captured memory of my niece, Jessica, and I on a vacation day at Murrell’s Inlet, South Caorlina … Huntington Beach State Park … one of my favorite places to be in the world.

With great excitement, she showed me mermaid fingernails for the first time. Solomon and Rachel were on a wild frenzy to collect them. She was pregnant with Pay at the time and looking back, wow, she was about to go any minute! What was I thinking planning a trip two hours away from the hospital?

As I looked at shells, she talked of fingernails and I knew that her imagination as an adult would be passed to her children because she would tell tales of magic and wonder. And I knew that a storyteller would be born. Either her … or Rachel … or Pay … or Chance … and our fishing of words and plot would somehow continue down the line all by collecting mermaid fingernails.

Will you accept the challenge?

Hold a family poetry slam for National Poetry Month.Hold a spoken word event at your next get together.Write a poem from a special memory and dedicate it to someone you love.

Love ya’ll

Jen

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