P is for Pearl

        (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Bittersweetness & Light, my new collection of hope-filled, joy-inducing fantasy and sci fi short stories, poems, and art.  Also, be sure to check out my fellow A to Z bloggers at the Master List.)

        P is for Pearl and Poetry, so here’s a poem about a pearl…

If your world is a pearl,

Wrapped in moist and briny clouds,

Enclosed in opalescent heavens,

Do you dance in the lucent twilight

In delight?

Do you raise your arms in gratitude

For the seed of sand at the heart,

And lay your palms on the lustrous earth,

Caressing the miracle of coming to be?

Do you lie on your back in the fields

Of silvery sheen,

Looking up at the smoky-violet aurora,

Wondering how there could possibly be

Such generosity of beauty?

Do you feel in the iridescent embrace­­

Of your universe

That love cannot be impossible?

Dance, then,

And wonder.

There are oceans beyond worlds

Within oceans

Beyond worlds,

And they are all children

Of mother-of-pearl –

Grains of sand

Grown into miracles.

        Why poetry, anyway?  Because it offers a way of expression that’s different, richer, and more flexible than ordinary sentences.  It can speak to the ears of the heart.  I keep trying to share with people my sense of the beauty with which we’re surrounded, and this poem is just one more attempt.  I am honored to be serving as the current Poet Laureate of my town, and I’m so excited to have opportunities through that position to use poetry to foster connection.  (You can read more about that here.)

        As for the illustration, it’s a small rubber block print painted with iridescent watercolor and placed on a digital background based on a photo.  I never made a full edition of this block print or offered it for sale because I wasn’t quite sure about it.  Maybe someday I’ll go back and work on it again.  Or, of course, maybe I won’t.  Not everything has to be a masterpiece.

        Marketing Moral: Add my book to your “To Read” shelf on Goodreads or similar sites.  Even if you haven’t read it yet, the algorithms look at which books people say they’re interested in.  And those cursed algorithms do at least have one thing in common with miraculous pearls: they both require a little grain of something to start growing.

        Proper Moral: Sometimes an irritant can turn out to be the impetus that was needed to start creating something precious.  (But to be honest, more often than not an irritant just scratches things up and wears things down!  Sometimes it’s hard to tell which way it’s going to go.)

        Have you ever tried a Gratitude Practice?  Was it in-depth journalling or simply taking a moment every day to consider a few things for which you’re grateful?  Or something else altogether?  (Part of my gratitude practice is posting on Instagram pictures of things that make me happy.)

[Picture: Pearl World, rubber block print with watercolor by AEGNydam from Bittersweetness & Light, 2025 (See NydamPrints.com).]