Snail Shell (Nature Journals)

A snail shell fell out of my pocket while I was putting my coat away, and I had forgotten about picking it up. So nondescript and plain it was but also wonderful, part of the natural world. I had not had a chance to really look at it a lot. Unlike in stories or fable-like things, it was not extravagant or something one would really notice. In fact, it was not only generic and common to the area, but faded tremendously, perhaps for age or the sun, I am not sure. 

Those worlds out there calmer than the other worlds so fast and ambitious, clever and calculating, crowded and often callous. 

It was white with brown swirls that went around. I had always liked snails and half adopted them as the idea for a totem ‘animal’ or symbol when others chose the wolf, the eagle, the lion, or even the hawk. I could move fast, but chose to move slowly and just go however I did, come what fates may, much as the snail moved along slowly. If sensing almost anything, these type of snails anyhow, would move back into their shell. 

Where did I find it?- at the end of a field where the land meets a stream, and the thawed waters now rush past intent on their destiny, alive alive alive,- a sure sign of if not spring having bloomed, then at least winter having ended. Some rocks are there and bits of ice still linger around them, remnants of the long frozen months. This is a liminal time, a moment between winter and true spring. Tall feral stalks and reeds golden, resilient, rising up still to the sun in the blue sky. Yes it just sat there alone and I figured I’d pick it up, hold it, and put it in my pocket. 

Then as aforementioned, I forgot about it. 

That area has a large woodpecker sometimes, and myriad small birds, plus there was a group of swans just a few days ago, having gathered in a little adjacent pond.

It’s not as if there is nothing to photograph, write about. 

The snail shell I like. Who thinks about it?- especially since there is not even a snail. I am sure there are in the world somewhere, snail enthusiasts. And what can be thought of as the opposite even, was there yesterday. What? A heron flying across the way, and some people have argued that it is the most beautiful bird of birds. Definitely it is graceful, agile, majestic. Perhaps beyond compare. When it waves wings they look as if they are in slow motion. 

But someone has to mind the lowly snail shell, I would think. Maybe not, but I would think so.  Details. Forgotten things. Some artifacts never even seen at all. 

Once a poor man picked up a penny and the others souls laughed. But the poor man became a rich man, who the world respected. Maybe though I have no motive one way or other, appreciating the snail might bring me some sort of luck or positive happenstance. 

And who would eschew any good fortune?