Striding through
dappled afternoon light
in the New Jersey Pine Barrens,
I kept pace with my grandmother.
From time to time,
my naturalist grandmother
would call out Latin names
for leafy plants —
Gentiana autumnalis,
Drosera filiformis —
her eyes roaming the details
of petal, stem, color.
My eyes,
however,
rested on my grandmother’s hand,
stuffed deep in her coat pocket.
She smiled at my notice,
withdrawing a perfect glossy seashell.
Small, round, rolled,
the milky shell
bore the stripes of a tiger.
If you are ever worried,
she intoned,
you can give your worries to the shell –
the effect is like magic.
Grandmother handed me her shell.
Keep this in your pocket.
You will find it easier
to carry a small shell
than the weight
of your worldly worries.
Even now,
my thumb
travels over the smooth surface
of the Olive shell,
discarding detritus,
just as my grandmother did
four decades ago.
A Reading Life 
Oh, I love this piece. I can hear your footsteps as you walk and can almost feel the shell in my own hand. Best wishes for this year’s Slice!
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Beth,
This is just lovely. How wise your grandmother was to teach you this lesson about coping w/ worries. I so wish I’d learned all these botany the adults in my life tried to teach me as a child.
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Glenda — I wish I had learned all the terms too! I am going to take a master naturalist class in the fall. I hope my aging brain can absorb at least some of the terms!
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Such wisdom in this post, especially these lines.
You will find it easierto carry a small shellthan the weightof your worldly worries.
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What a wise grandmother! There is magic not only in the shell but also in her words.
Love this line! “discarding detritus”
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