As I stood at the edge of the sidewalk,
I looked down,
and saw a penny 'neath the water
in a small puddle,
which was runnoff from the rain,
or from melting snow.

Just a simple penny,
a bit of copper and other metals,
something hardly anyone would notice,
or bother picking up.

But I did pick it up.

I saw not only the penny,
but I saw in my imagination
all the possibilities of how that penny
came to be there,-
the myriad different journeys it might have taken
to end up a part of that small puddle.

My favorite thought of all of them
is that the penny once belonged to some special person,
someone of great importance,
in this common world we live in,
someone who, in turning, perhaps,
or in reaching for keys in a pocket,
dislodged the penny,
and never noticed it dropping
to where it finally rested at the bottom of that tiny pool of water.

All the years it has existed,
from the time it was first made until now,
and all the travels,
all the pockets and purses,
all the payments made and change made with it,
are locked away in memories I cannot reach,
but I can imagine them...
and yes, I do imagine them.

Like life, itself,
there are many pennies that fall and are lost,
and often the penny is given up,
and sometimes the penny is picked up,
but hardly anyone takes notice,
or wonders about the paths that penny had been down.

Who would care about such a thing?
Why would anyone even wonder?

I would.
But then, I have been that penny.
And so I had to pick it up to end the journey,
to give it rest, if you will,
and maybe, one day,
unlock the secrets of its past,
and enjoy the stories that it might tell.

I wiped it off,
put it into my pocket,
carried it home,
and gave it a place of its own.

From time to time
I look at it, hold it,
wonder about it,
and enjoy the thoughts those wonderings give me.

Like a book filled with secrets
that you need to only open the cover to find,
the penny holds all that I could wish to know,
if I only open up my mind.

It is enough

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