It’s Poetry Friday! Thank you, Kiesha Shepard at Whispers From The Ridge for hosting. This week she is sharing poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar that speak to the heart of what it means to be black in America.
I’m hoping for the best this fall, and think that we will need a lot of work and maybe a little luck to get through Covid, the election, and get our country back on track.
I’ve enjoyed being outside during this summer of social distancing, and one of my favorite places was Long Point State Park on Cayuga Lake. One day, I was given a lucky rock by a woman on the narrow beach. A lucky rock, apparently, is one in which a hole has been worn through it. Here are a few rocks I collected. See the holes in the top three?
I didn’t realize lucky rocks were a bonafide thing until on a later visit, another woman asked me if I’d found any lucky rocks.
So here’s a poem inspired by lucky rocks. And to celebrate summer.
LOST AND FOUND. In early September, on the shore of the lake, buried in sand and shells sat a velvety gray rock with a hole piercing its teardrop shape, as if a mermaid had lost her pendant. Many similar rocks sprinkled the shoreline like an end of summer lost and found. © Janice Scully 2020
I am beginning an on-line workshop on novels in verse and so I won’t be posting this next month. Any progress on my WIP will require considerable focus, which has been difficult for me this summer. I hope all the teachers out there are well, successfully and happily returning to their work.
Thank you, Kiesha, for hosting!
I do collect heart rocks but have never heard of this kind of “lucky rock”, Janice. Now you’ll have me searching, searching! I love that you found three and “as if a mermaid had lost her pendant.” is a dream idea! Best wishes in your class!
Thank you, Linda. Let me know if you learn anything about lucky rocks.
What treasures! And a treasure of a poem that came from their finding!
As a committed beachcomber I shall be looking for lucky rocks from this day forward Janice. Thank you for chipping away at my ignorance. Thank you also for your poem. I particularly enjoyed the reference to the mermaid’s pendant.
It’s good to have another reason to go to the beach. Thank you, Alan.
I have also collected heart-shaped rocks, but haven’t heard of lucky rocks. I’ll start keeping my eyes open for them. Good luck with your novel in verse this month.
Oooh! I love finding rock treasures, and I adore the idea of this rock once belonging to a mermaid 🙂
Oh how fun to see a lucky rock (and one worn by a mermaid, no less!) from Cayuga Lake. I lived in Ithaca for 10 years, where I met my husband in a plant ecology class. Now we look for Petoskey stones and other treasures from Lake Michigan.
I love Ithaca and now really love Cayuga Lake. It’s been a treasure during this pandemic. Petoskey stones? What are they?
I like the mermaid and your “velvety rock” Janice. I recently collected some acorns from a black oak tree… All the best with your workshop, I’ve read quite a few novels in verse (Margarita Engle’s, Nikki Grimes’, Jacqueline Woodson’s) and am taken by them!