I received an email a while ago from someone who visited the Woods Hole Aquarium in Falmouth, MA. While there she happened to spy a tiny piece of paper on the floor, and picked it up to see what it was. It was a poem about a skunk cabbage, hand-written in tiny letters on the front and back of a little scrap of paper. The poem? My poem, "Song for the Skunk Cabbage.” The finder was thoughtful enough to look me up online, and send me an email to tell me about it. That email really made my day!
So often we all go about our business, day to day, and never really think about the fact that something we have done, said, or written, might actually be rippling out away from us and touching people beyond our doorstep. Or windshield. Or desktop. As someone who writes, I can say that I often wonder if anything I have thought out loud “on paper” has touched anyone or even been heard. I write because I love to and also, quite frankly, because I can’t help it. But I have to confess that knowing someone liked that little poem of mine enough to take the time to hand-write it out on a little piece of paper is very heartening. And the fact that someone had an inkling I’d feel that way and cared enough to let me know – really just, well, it kind of blew me away. I have just been walking around grinning over this for days and days.
The other day my editor at Moon Pie Press forwarded an envelope to me. The finder of the poem had forwarded that little piece of paper with my poem on it to her (with the return address: "a lover of serendipity and karma,") and my editor, in turn, forwarded it to me. This is such a gift! My poems are like children to me; I do the best I can with them and then send them out into the world. This one traveled to the Woods Hole Aquarium on a tiny piece of paper, then came back home to mama for a visit, thanks to a few lovers of serendipity and karma.
If you are a lover of serendipity and karma, wear it proud! I know it might be more hip to instant-message, insta-gram and reach out and touch technologically. But don’t forget to hand-write, send something snail mail, stick a poem under someone’s windshield wiper, print out a photograph and give it to someone to magnet onto their fridge. I know it is the thought that counts, but for my money a thought in the hand is worth two in the cloud.
