She Writes

My backstory is at the end of this poem. 

Black Sand Beach  / by Sam Silver 

Iron-dark grains underfoot,

Formed in ancient fires and shaped by time,

Here, the shore is black as night.

Iron that was once molten is now shaped into taconite spheres,

Cooled and gathered, loaded with purpose.

In the belly of freighters, they journey

They travel through the silver channels of the Great Lakes,

A pulse of industry beneath the waves.

Phrases and designations that barely existed when we who are old now were young then. 

I’ve only ever been proposed to twice. Once was from my husband, though frankly, that was more of a startling conversation than a proposal. 

I will shield the details but tell you what happened this week that struck me hard. 

I volunteer one morning shift per week at the Food Pantry of Waukesha County. (Many volunteers work several days per week and will often come in to staff slots when regulars can’t make it.) 

I was leaving after a long morning, getting into my car when the middle-aged woman in the driver’s seat of the van next to me addressed me. An older woman was in the passenger seat next to her. 

“Miss?” She was talking to me.

“Yes?”

Aristotle wrote a lot of important stuff, very little of which I’ve read. But this Aristotelian idea is cool and I don’t know why we are not taught this in high school. It helps untangle why we are reading what we are reading and watching what we are watching.