Sits in my palm
like something old
polished with handling
through the generations
and yet
I am the first to see
this flat blind nipple
this warm belly, swollen,
marked with the swirled
thumbprint of life.
Welcome to dVersee, where we are using all our senses to write mindful poems.
Sarah writes poems 
I like this kind of polishing: “polished with handling
through the generations”
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I like how you contrasted the aged polished feeling (like Kim’s netsuke) and the freshness of a conker just released from its skin.
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I love conkers – they remind me of my childhood. There were two horse chestnut trees right outside out block of maisonettes and all the children would gather them – not so many actual played conkers, though. I just loved the burnished brown colour and the ‘horse’ in the name. I wanted a horse when I was little and a chestnut was the closest I got! And you’re right, they are like things that have been polished over time, even though they are new every autumn. I like the break of ‘and yet’ and the development of the theme of procreation in the ‘swirled thumbprint of life’. Wonderful, Sarah.
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Well spotted, Sarah. There is something Mother Goddess about that conker.
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It’s easy to forget it’s actually a seed…
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Very true 🙂 I’m having problems finding an object for your prompt. I don’t really have anything suitable to hand and it’s too dark to go grubbing about outside. Might be a while, hatching, this one.
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Wonderful writing! I especially liked
“this warm belly, swollen,
marked with the swirled
thumbprint of life.”
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Thank you.
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“this warm belly, swollen,” Perfect.
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For a moment, I thought you had a Conk shell. We don’t have many horse chestnut trees in WA state. Are these the eating kind of chestnuts, like in the Christmas songs?
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No, these are almost entirely useless. Kids put them n strings and play games with them, and apparently they keep spiders away.
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Your description so abruptly reminds me this is a living thing, pregnant with life.
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This is a new term for me. I discovered it is what we called Horse Chestnuts. We had them in Pennsylvania when I was young. We dug out the middle and made pretend pipes with them. Loved all your great images. The smoothness of the thumbprint is perfect!
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my friend told me they keep spiders away. “marked with the swirled
thumbprint of life”. – this was to me a sweet appreciation for the effort mother nature takes into giving us things of beauty and wonder
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Beautiful Sarah. Just an FYI- I could not see the images..
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You made me think about how being the first to see and appreciate a small detail that has been overlooked by others gives you an intimate connection with that object. This suits the prompt well – demonstrating how time spent with an object can broaden ones perspective.
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Lovely descriptions and contrasts.. I like the idea of “a thumbprint of life” and those objects touched for the first times. Makes me think about how much of nature is never ever touched.
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