Nature of All Things
Two Poems by Jennifer Novotney
The Shell We Carry
I run down to the cool waves
that lap at my feet
sink into the saturated
granules of weathered rock and sharp seashells.
For a moment, it feels as if I will fall
right through to the center of the earth.
Little claws gently grab at my toes.
I dig until I find them
little hermits in shell houses.
Their tiny legs tickle in the palm of my hand.
I wonder what we carry with us
from place to place, looking for our bit of water
a spot of darkness in which to bury ourselves.
The crabs squirm under the sun’s rays
burrow into the small amount of sand
I cup in my hand
the tips of their shells peeking out
heads down, burrowing
always digging deeper.
How Time Passes
The snow falls outside
imperceptible as it has done
for so many years
before this house sat
on this mountain
before the ground was broken
open to its natural resources.
Today we sit
still in this home
with nowhere to go
and nothing to do
much like the tall fir tree
that stands guard
at the front of our land.
It will continue to grow
its trunk getting wider and thicker
it’s apex taller and higher
reaching upwards toward
the blue grey sky
because in it lies the
nature of all things.
Jennifer Novotney holds an M.A. in English from Northern Arizona University. Her poetry is forthcoming in Buddhist Poetry Review and Amethyst Review and has appeared in English Journal, Poetry Quarterly, and The Vignette Review, the latter for which she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In 2014, she won the Moonbeam Children’s Book Award for her debut novel Winter in the Soul. She lives in northeast Pennsylvania with her family where she teaches English and creative writing.
